IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Addressing The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), being held here today, Toure praised the work being done in Kuwait by the Central Apparatus for Information Technology (CAIT) in promoting the merits of telecommunications and IT services among the populace.

Minister of State for IT & Telecom Anusha Rahman Thursday met Azerbaijan’s Minister for IT Ali Mammad Oglu Abbasov and Iran’s Minister of Communication and Information Technology Mahmoud Vaezi on the sidelines of ITU Telecom World event in Budapest, Hungary.

In her meeting with Abbasov, it was agreed that both countries will enhance cooperation and collaboration in the fields of ICTs as well as research and development. Anusha also met with high-level delegations from Turkey, ITU, World Bank and Cisco Corporation.

Mobile services such as sharing credits, providing cash, paying bills, supporting small and medium (SME's) enterprises, and sharing health information from HIV/AIDS to prenatal care -- all have become the order of the day for many in the developing world. In fact mobile phones in Africa, China, and Asia have become cradles of innovation for mobile services; mobile phones are used less for talking, and more today as platforms to support daily living, and improving quality of life. Today nearly half of the world's population has access to mobile phones, both pre-paid and post-paid services, growing from fewer than 1 billion in 2000 to over 6 billion, of which nearly 5 billion units are in the developing world.

Business has been growing at the brothers’ Kobciye Internet Coffee, one of the several makeshift Internet cafés that have emerged in Mogadishu since the Islamic militant group Al-Shabaab fled the city. “I wanted a business,” Hassan says, “and this is something that I’m good at. I have skills in computers and IT.” The café costs around $600 a month to run, and the brothers manage to bring in around $1,000 from their 40 or so daily customers, mostly university students.

He said that his mission as President of the 18th NEC of the NCS is to meet the demands of members and the dynamism of the time. Professor Adewunmi also pledged to expand the membership base of NCS by completing the establishment of NCS chapters in all states of the federation.

He said, 'The government would develop telecome network and establish PCO in undeserved areas to bring these areas at par with developed ones', Kaira said. He was addressing the concluding session of the one-day training workshop on 'Agriculture Decision Supports System (ADSS)' the indigenously created Data Mining tool. The workshop was organised by the Fast National University to apply emerging scientific system in agri-sector to enhance crop production with use of minimum output.

Addressing the 4th convocation of Virtual University (VU) at its main campus, Raiwind Road, she said the government attached great priority to the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector especially the e-government system. The minister said the government had put in place all possible measures to accelerate the development of ICT sector in the country.

A government plan to privatize its network of Telecommunications Offices (Telof) nationwide will no longer be pursued, as it is mulling the use of those facilities for a project aimed at connecting the national bureaucracy all the way down to the barangay level using broadband technology.

Documents obtained from the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) showed that the old equipment of Telof will no longer be sold, and instead will be used for the National Broadband Network (NBN) Project.

A high-level meeting opened yesterday to review progress on the outcomes of the previous WSIS sessions, held in Geneva in 2003 and in Tunis in 2005.

Policy-makers, including ministers and leaders from civil society, academia, business and international organisations will focus attention on implementation of the outcomes of the summit for next year’s 10-year review during the WSIS+10 High-level Event that kicked off yesterday.

However, the reason I have been here more often than to any of the larger African nations is that its national strategy has turned it into a center for international conferences, where many of the future goals and perspectives of the continent are hammered out. In that respect, it has something in common with Addis Ababa.

2200 Frauen in Städten und stadtnahen Gebieten aus den Ländern Ägypten, Indien, Mexiko und Uganda wurden für die Studie zu ihrer Internetnutzung befragt. Die Ergebnisse wurden im Rahmen einer zweitägigen internationalen Arbeitstagung des US-Außenministeriums und der Organisation “UN Women“ vorgestellt.

Tata Consultancy Services, India’s largest information technology (IT) services company, said on Saturday it was expecting its local business to pick up faster on anticipation of increased spending on technology by the new government at the Centre. The company also said though the rupee was appreciating against the dollar owing to the decisive mandate in the Lok Sabha elections, only a volatile currency could be a cause of concern.

“I expect the India business to pick up with the kind of mandate the Bharatiya Janata Party got on Friday. I do expect that the new government would adopt technologies faster, while we will see a revival in corporate spending across the board,” N Chandrasekaran, chief executive and managing director of the Mumbai-headquartered company, said. Among Indian IT services companies, TCS has a fairly high degree of exposure to the local market, from where it derives around seven per cent of revenue. However, the region has been under pressure in the past couple of quarters due to the slow pace of technology spending in the country. In the quarter ended March, the company’s India business posted a growth of 0.3 per cent.

With the exception of South Africa and Botswana, governments willing to commit significant resources to ICT is a relatively recent trend in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2010 Kenya completed the East African Marine System (TEAMS) undersea fibre optic cable project which increased East African broadband and led to the establishment of Kenya's Information and Communication Technology Authority.

Throughout Africa's shift away from economic disconnection to technological advancement and integration with the global economy Rwanda has come a long way since the 1990s. The Rwandan government has placed becoming a technology hub at the centre of the country's national priorities.

State Minister for Information and Communication Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak on Tuesday said the proposed Digital Security law will be the elaborate version of the previously enacted Cyber Security law.

“With increased digital services, the crimes are not occurred only through online services, rather through digital devices. Therefore, we are planning an elaborate act to tackle all sorts of digital crimes”, the state minister told reporters at ICT division conference room in Agargaon.

Ekeh told THISDAY that there was an urgent need to arrest the restiveness of unemployed youths in Africa, but that such empowerment must begin with the provision of ICT tools in order to be sustainable.

He urged the Heads of State of the African Union meeting in Malabo Equatorial Guinea to look beyond fiscal credit as means of empowerment and set in place policies designed to achieve the ownership of ICT products like PCs, printers, and internet access for the majority of African youths.

"There is no doubt in my mind that the emphasis on technology was a core contributor to Qatar's success and remains as relevant to the country's objectives now as it has been for world ambitions over the past three centuries," Boeing Middle East president Jeffrey Johnson told Gulf Times.

ICT is an opportunity that needs to tempt into active food production value chain. So far, there are many mobile telephone farming innovations that is a manifestation of a true revolution in the country’s agricultural production.

"We see a very positive growth, thanks to new technologies," Audai Altaie, regional head of enterprise business, Enterprise Business Group, MENA HQ of Samsung Electronics, told Khalil Hanware of Arab News in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of Samsung's recent MENA Forum 2013 in Dubai.