IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Last Tuesday I had the opportunity to hear the views of the top executives of some of the country’s leading tech disruptors on the current state of our preparedness to take full advantage of the benefits of the digital economy. This was a follow-up of the conference recently organized by the Carlos P. Romulo Foundation on digital future during which the imperative to address the broadband infrastructure requirements was one of the major conclusions.

What I heard was frankly quite dismaying. While they were all able to function within the confines of the current state of our digital infrastructure, it comes at significant costs and at less than the intended quality of service. More industries are increasing their reliance on the internet, but connectivity issues hamper advancement.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is a potential economic growth field, which rewards creativity and innovation with small investment. This potential needs to be exploited for putting Pakistan’s economy on a high-growth trajectory.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is a potential economic growth field, which rewards creativity and innovation with small investment. This potential needs to be exploited for putting Pakistan’s economy on a high-growth trajectory.

With the current market push towards a digital economy, every enterprise is exploring ways to move with the change. Like private enterprises, nations are also joining the race of eGovernment, eFinance, and eLearning. In such a backdrop, not having a path to full digitization can be viewed as a lack of innovation from executive leadership.

The path to digital transformation is littered with pitfalls and loss of associated investments. A significant number of these initiatives either fail altogether or deliver partial results.

30 years before World Wide Web was invented, Canadian communication guru Marshall McLuhan predicted that "electronic interdependence" will connect mankind in a collective identity into a "global village". About 2.5 billion people now live in Marshal McLuhan's E-Global Village that has become not only a multicultural reality, but a big E-Market.

Most of the developed countries in the world especially the Nordic nations are at the top of the telecommunication penetration and availability ladder.

Pakistan has made tremendous progress in ICT with new areas coming under coverage and expansion of services from fixed-line and broadband to more mobile wireless options.

Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif affirmed the provincial government’s dedication to fostering an environment conducive to technological innovation and investment.

During a meeting with Yu Shaoning, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Huawei Pakistan, on Saturday, she emphasized the government’s resolve to harness modern technologies for enhancing governance, public services, and economic development.

The advance technology will not only benefit consumers, but will also provide the government with an opportunity to set up an e-governance system, a critical step for sustainable development in the country.

Third generation (3G) mobile and WiMAX wireless broadband services are being rolled out at a rapid pace, backed by new national and international fiber links. Nigeria ranks 8th out of a total of 212 member countries of United Nations in terms of number of internet users. Contrastingly, it occupies 128th spot in terms of internet penetration.

Here in the small village of Ambalavayal, in southern India, in a large dim room beside the local school, about 30 villagers sit patiently on benches.

Young mothers in bright saris with babies on their shoulders. Old men with the dust of the fields on their clothes and coarse work-worn hands.

With the rise of digital platforms, the world is rapidly changing. In newspaper and book publishing, TV and radio, film, music, and other forms of media, we see that the walls that protected organisations within traditional models are crumbling.

Our future rests on E-health and E-education

Yet, despite the obvious need to move with the times, many professionals and organisations are still grappling with the digital economy and questioning the impact it will have on them – or, even worse, are ignorant about it. In many cases, their own consumers are well ahead of them.

"We plan to map ICT infrastructure so that all people can get access to available facilities across the country," he said.

According to the official, many projects will be embraced with the use of new technologies so as to ensure fast and good service delivery to communities.

President Cyril Ramaphosa last week delivered South Africa’s State of the Nation Address (Sona), and the proverbial dust has now settled.

This dust may have been kicked up by those who oppose him, his leadership style, his party, the ANC, and the way it is leading this country. Conversely, others were left unimpressed by what was delivered in the address, as it provided them with nothing to make their lives any better or provide genuine hope.

In his opening address, Mr. Khalifa said, "It is critical for us to collectively work toward ensuring that our future ICT policies are created and harmonized on the pillars of knowledge, collaboration, commonality in developmental goals, and the passion to achieve human success. We need to develop and sustain processes for accelerating digitization in our economies, to guarantee social and economic progress throughout South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa."

It is "critical" for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to plug into the digital economy, as it would make a noticeable impact on Singapore's growth, Minister for Communications and Information S. Iswaran said on Sunday (Feb 17).

Speaking about the Government's ongoing efforts to support businesses in the digital space, Mr Iswaran, who is also the Minister-in-charge of Trade Relations, said: "This is not just the larger enterprises but also for the smaller and medium-sized enterprises. That's critical because they really move the needle for us in terms of the economy, if they plug into the digital economy."

Dr Sak Segkhoonthod, President and CEO of Electronic Government Agency, delivered the opening keynote and revealed Thailand’s ICT master plan “Smart Thailand” and how ICT can answer the public sector’s need to deliver sustainable growth.

“Smart Thailand regards ICT as an important driver towards a stronger economy, social equality, and environmental friendliness,” said Dr Segkhoonthod.

Initiative mainly based on AI, healthcare data, and untact industry

The South Korean government announced three projects and 10 tasks on May 7 for the “South Korean New Deal,” including AI-based remote learning, healthcare data usage, and an increase in “untact” healthcare pilot projects. The announcement included plans for reforming the economy and creating jobs to adjust to rapidly changing social and economic conditions amid the novel coronavirus outbreak, with a focus on the untact and digital areas.

Commenting on the South Korean New Deal at a second meeting of the central emergency headquarters for economic measures on May 7, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Hong Nam-ki explained, “It focuses on digitally based projects and impactful, large-scale innovation projects that have a major synergy effect with private investment and are directly tied to improvements in productivity and competitiveness in all areas of the economy.”

Korea topped the global ICT Development Index (IDI) released on September 15 by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), an agency of the United Nations responsible for ICT.

For the annual report, “Measuring the Information Society 2011,” ITU compiled this year’s IDI by ranking 152 countries’ access to, use of, and skills with ICT and comparing the results to their 2008 and 2010 scores.

Secondly, ICT often tends to lower the cost of setting up small enterprises thus, potentially, providing for additional competition. Thirdly, ICT creates the opportunity for new co-operative means of product and service delivery potentially leading to improved quality and cost efficiency. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, ICT gives rise to many new products and services.

The KEI is an aggregate index representing a nation or region's overall preparedness to compete in the Knowledge Economy based on four pillars: the economic incentive and institutional regime (EIR), innovation and technological adoption, education and training, and information and communications technologies (ICT) infrastructure.

Taiwan's knowledge economy competitiveness has continuously improved over the past 12 years, with the ranking rising from 16th in 2000 to 13th this year, and the gap with other leading nations decreasing.