IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

According to a Public Notice published this week, the working group will hold a stakeholders’ consultation forum on Tuesday next week to discuss the draft policy and bill.

The Ministry of Information, Communications and Technology has mandated the working group to develop a draft policy and bill for the implementation of Article 34 of the Constitution and to hold consultative meetings with stakeholders and members of the public on the draft proposals.

This emerged from a presentation by Katherine Getao, ICT secretary at the Ministry of Information Communication and Technology, at the Connected Kenya summit in Mombasa

The project concept for the Caribbean Regional Communications Infrastructure Programme (CARCIP) was officially presented to the region at a workshop at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre in St. Michael, Barbados. The workshop, which opened on 17 November, was held at the conclusion of the Fifth Meeting of the Regional Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Steering Committee.

The World Bank was engaged in bi-lateral discussions with various countries, but only on Wednesday officially disclosed the project to a wider regional grouping.

The program, the World Bank said, will complement the submarine fiber cable projects being developed along the east coast of Africa, which will link the region into the global communication network.

"The report reveals both encouraging and cautionary trends," the bank said in a statement issued recently.

The strategy reflects rapid changes in the ICT sector over the past decade, including a dramatic increase in use of mobile phones and the Internet, plunging prices of computing and mobile Internet devices, and the increasing prevalence of social media.

The summit decided to bring forward ICT connectivity goals to 2012 to enable the achievement of the broader Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.

Information and Communications for Development 2009: Extending Reach and Increasing Impact takes an in-depth look at how ICT impacts economic growth in developing countries. The report finds that for every 10 percentage-point increase in high speed Internet connections there is an increase in economic growth of 1.3 percentage points. It also identifies the mobile platform as the single most powerful way to reach and deliver public and private services to hundreds of millions of people in remote and rural areas across the developing world.

Delegates to ITU's World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Symposium (WTIS), held this week in Mexico City (4-6 December) endorsed the need to strengthen and adapt the way data on information and communication technologies (ICTs) is collected to better meet the needs of today's fast-evolving environment.

Accurate data on indicators like network access, service affordability and connection speeds is increasingly recognized as essential to each country's plans for social development and economic growth.

Addressing as the chief guest the opening ceremony of a daylong divisional seminar on "Vision 2021: Digital Bangladesh and Our responsibility" here, he said the rural people should be brought under the digitalization process side by side with the urban people to attain the cherished goal.

CeBIT 2013 shone the spotlight on the key trends and innovations in the digital economy and there were also exciting contacts to be made. This event has also long been the largest career market in the high-tech sector.

According to a study by the German Federal Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media (Bitkom) and applied research and development organisation Fraunhofer, 45% of companies are already reporting that their current staff are overextended owing to a lack of human research resources. Twenty-six per cent had to turn down contracts as a result, 9% were unable to complete certain projects and 8% report losing customers as a result of this situation.

It will take a century for a poor household to tweet its way out of poverty. That’s a very long time for anyone wondering where their next meal is coming from. But it’s a significant new finding because it proves once and for all that social media and access to information and communication technology (ICT) is a pathway out of poverty.

The government's two weakest points were public administration and information technology services, both of which fell under Sisulu's department.

ICT would be a critical part of "professionalising" the public service.

The ever-increasing demand for ICT skills can be partially met by a strong business focus on staff training and ‘up-skilling’, says Robert Sussman, joint CEO of Integr8.

The exponential growth of ICT is not only driving demand for sufficient numbers in existing skills, but is also creating the need for new skills. Sussman explains that in order for businesses to fully capitalise on technologies such as cloud, virtualisation, mobility and big data, new skill sets are needed to help businesses utilise these trends to their full potential.

This morning, Stella Tembisa Ndabeni-Abrahams, deputy minister of communications, handed over computer lab equipment and connectivity to the province’s Jonguhlanga Secondary and Chief Henry Bokleni High schools.

The department on Thursday admitted that the index was a starting point, and that the data collected to launch the new measurement tool had been difficult to collate. It hoped that as data improved, so would the eBarometer.

The report is aimed at facilitating an evidence-based and scientific approach when planning and implementing projects contained in the department's Strategic Plan.

According to the 2011 IT Web-JCSE Skills Survey, two thirds (66%) of companies from a wide range of industries are severely impacted by a shortage of ICT skills. International figures would certainly seem to back up this finding, with evidence that demand for ICT skills is not being met. This is unsurprising, given the way in which ICT has become the platform on which most, if not all, business now runs, with government catching up fast.