IfG.CC - The Institute for eGovernment

Minister of Finance and Acting Prime Minister Nazim Burke yesterday told participants attending the UNESCO Building Caribbean Knowledge Societies Conference that ICT will empower all citizens of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to improve their quality of life and achieve their full potential.

“There is little doubt that Information Communication Technology acts as a vehicle in bringing services to our people where ever they are. These services include e-banking, e-government, e-learning and a gamut of people-centered interactions,” he said. “Even more importantly, ICT brings with it a myriad of opportunities for employment creation, innovation and entrepreneurship hitherto unimaginable in our region.”

The Secretary General, who was addressing the opening ceremony of the Forty-Eighth Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development on Information and Communications Technology in Grenada, said a renewed focus on ICT in the Caribbean was critical.

Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis believes The Bahamas can replicate the success experienced by the Republic of Estonia, which has effectively used technology to transform its government services and attract international investment.

Prime Minister Minnis held a bilateral meeting with the President of the Republic of Estonia, Kersti Kaljulaid, on Tuesday, Feb. 26, on the sidelines of the 30th Inter-Sessional Meeting of the Conference of the Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

Addressing delegates to the United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) funded Building Caribbean Knowledge Societies conference, Burke said that ICT will empower all citizens of the Caribbean Community to improve their “quality of life and achieve their full potential.

“There is little doubt that information communication technology acts as a vehicle in bringing services to our people where ever they are. These services include e-banking, e-government, e-learning and a gamut of people-centered interactions. Even more importantly, ICT brings with it a myriad of opportunities for employment creation, innovation and entrepreneurship hitherto unimaginable in our region,” Burke said.

The Ministers’ discussion will take place on the platform of the 36th Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) under which ICT falls.

The CARICOM Secretariat led the formulation of the strategy to guide the ICT activities and initiatives in the region and to use ICT as a critical development tool for the Caribbean.

Over the period of the meeting (16-17 November) at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre in St. Michael, members of the Regional ICT Steering Committee; representatives of Member States and regional institutions and organizations will be locked in discussions on the governance and the implementation mechanism for the Regional ICT Strategy, as efforts intensify towards the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) becoming an Information/Knowledge economy by 2015.

Internet traffic—data packets that move across telecommunications networks—is opening new economic possibilities to countries with a historical dependence on tourism. The governments of Grenada, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines are now working together to update their on-island Internet infrastructure, as part of a wider project to upgrade the data networks across the region.

The current system, in which customs and/or immigration officials manually process passengers at borders, calls for significant resources and infrastructure and is generally time consuming for passengers and border authorities. Passengers may be interviewed or examined, and their baggage and travel documentation is inspected.

Public opinion is that this current system of processing travelers tends to be cumbersome and inefficient, and it further supports the growing need to accurately identify travelers in a more cost effective, efficient manner for security and border control purposes.

This Special Meeting of the COTED will bring together Ministers Responsible for ICT in CARICOM under the leadership of the Prime Minister of Grenada, Tillman Thomas, who is the Lead Head of Government responsible for Science and Technology (including ICT) in the Quasi Cabinet of CARICOM. The Ministers will review progress reports on ICT development, as CARICOM pushes to meet this aspect of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Politicians love to promise a better and brighter future. They tend to say little about the day to day experience their citizens have of the services they provide.

In the Caribbean, as in other parts of the world, what most individuals want from government is the rapid and efficient delivery of everyday resources, if policies and regulations are to mean anything at all.

The secretary-general told the Observer during the Sept. 22 to 26 CTU/ICT Week of Activities that the organization is persuading governments to be early adopters of ICT technologies and lead their countries into the “evolving information age”.

Throwing out a challenge for those involved in the sector to come up with a measurable plan of action aimed at building up ICT capacity among agricultural organizations and producers, the Secretary-General pointed to the advantage of those businesses that have taken advantage of ICTs.

The sultanate represented by the National Digital Certification Centre at Information Technology Authority (ITA) recently participated in the Expert Group Meeting on Mobile ID (mID) in collaboration with the International Telecommunications Union of the United Nations in the Republic of Poland.

The aim of the expert group meeting is to share ideas about innovative mobile identity solutions and share experiences about past and current implementation efforts at the national level.

As part of its vision to achieve e.oman strategy, the Information Technology Authority (ITA) is conducting a survey on “Measuring the Public Awareness on eGovernment Services” during the period from April 20 to 22, 2017.

The survey targets people in some selected malls and shopping centres in Muscat Governorate only (Avenues Mall, Muscat Grand Mall, Muscat City Center, and Alsahwa Park); in addition to an online survey to be published through the ITA social media accounts.

Visiting Muscat Municipality’s web page over any mobile device will soon be hassle-free as the civic body is in the process of revamping its website so that it can adapt to any screen size.

Speaking to Muscat Daily, Nihad Juma al Belushi, senior e-Services specialist in the Information Systems Directorate of the Muscat Municipality said, “We are redesigning our website to make it compatible with any device - whether it’s a personal computer, laptop, mobile phone or a tablet.

Ooredoo Oman, a top telecom provider, has partnered with Al Roya Press and Publishing to launch a digital literacy programme which will empower more than 900 women with essential IT skills.

Backed by Ooredoo’s team of technical experts, the initiative will include 30 training sessions in nine Wilayats to help nurture the digital lifestyle benefits provided by smartphones, e-government services, and other personal electronic devices.

Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OCCI) in the governorate of Dhofar, will organise the fourth international e-commerce conference under the theme ‘e-payment’, in collaboration with Middle East Centre for Social Consultancies and Studies

The opening ceremony of the two-day conference, which starts at Crowne Plaza Hotel Salalah on Tuesday, will be held under the auspices of Sayyid Mohammed bin Sultan Al Busaidi, minister of state and governor of Dhofar.

Oman has been ranked among the top three countries in e-government in a new report.

The e-government report for 2017 issued by the Institute of e-Government at Japanese Waseda University, has ranked the Sultanate third in its overall index.

Tao Wen-lung, secretary-general of Taiwan's International Cooperation Development Fund (ICDF), told participants that the event was organized to promote ICT development in the Caribbean and narrow the digital gap between developing countries in the region and developed nations, according to a statement by Taiwan's Embassy to Saint Lucia.

According to Colin McGeachey, a biometrics specialist with 3M Canada, the Caricom cluster of countries started pooling their border control resources back in 1972, and today the Caricom group has 15 member countries with around 16 million people flying through a total of 18 airports throughout the region each year.