IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

A virtual national conference on digital transformation in open education to encourage life-long learning and establish a learning society was held yesterday at 150 locations in Vietnam.

In his speech, Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son stressed that digital transformation is enthusiastically being carried out in education in hope of applying advanced technologies in the learning-teaching process as well as educational research so that the quality of these processes is improved. The ultimate aim of this digital transformation is to help all people access education and to form an open education foundation on digital platforms.

The government is increasing the number of education centres so anyone can learn how to use digital devices, such as smartphones and kiosks, in their daily lives.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) is boosting the number of Digital Literacy Education Centres in the South Korean capital in a bid to narrow the digital divide.

Until mid-June 2021, SMG will increase the number of education centres by eight to 14 so anyone can learn how to use digital devices, such as smartphones and kiosks, in their daily lives.

Nurlan Iskendir, Astana resident: «People often need different certificates and to receive them, it is not necessary to ask for permission to leave work but just connect to the internet and receive all necessary information at home.»

Two premier companies operating in the country, Lafarge Mahaweli Cement and Microsoft Sri Lanka, joined hands with Sarvodaya, one of Sri Lanka’s foremost non-governmental organizations, to establish an Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Centre in Gampaha. The Centre aims to improve ICT skills among youth in the Gampaha district.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with regard to the establishment of this Centre was signed at the Lafarge Head Office in Orugodawatte, between Anurag Kak, Managing Director of Lafarge Mahaweli Cement (Pvt) Ltd, Sriyan de Silva Wijeyeratne, Country Manager, Microsoft Sri Lanka & Bangladesh and Dr. Vinya S. Ariyarathne, General Secretary of Lanka Jathika Sarvodaya Sangamaya. Jamie Harper, President, Microsoft South East Asia New Markets who was on a visit to Sri Lanka also graced the event.

The ‘Information Economy Report 2012’ shows that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) software and services are dominated by the developed world but developing economies are catching up.

It says that piracy, poor ICT infrastructure and inadequate protection of intellectual property rights are some of the major challenges hindering ICT software development and service expansion in developing regions such as Africa.

The programme pools together a number of students wishing to find a work-attachment for the summer in which they can apply their ICT and ICT-related business knowledge and capabilities.

Figures published yesterday by Eurostat show that over a four year period, Malta also registered the highest increase in the number of computer graduates in the bloc. According to surveys commissioned by the EU’s statistics office, back in 2005 only 1.9 per cent of all local graduates were in ICT-related fields but by 2009 the figure had gone up to 5.6 per cent. In the EU on the other hand, the average number of ICT graduates shrink to 3.4 per cent from four per cent in 2005.

In an effort to transform education to align with international standards, governments across the Middle East are turning to the increased integration of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in schools. In April this year, HH Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, launched a new smart learning initiative that will transform classrooms as well as integrate teachers, students, parents and administrators into a single e-platform. The Dh1 billion ‘Mohammad Bin Rashid Smart Learning Initiative’ is part of the UAE Vision 2021 and will be introduced in four stages over five years.

Cutting-edge training programmes are thriving in Arab states, fuelled by collaboration between government, business and academic institutions.

It’s crunch time: A reskilling revolution is crucial if we don’t want workers to be left behind by automation.

The World Economic Forum predicts 1 billion jobs – a third of all jobs worldwide – will be transformed by technology by 2030. Inevitably, traditional sectors will be displaced as demand shifts to emerging tech including data analysis, generative AI and software development.

But today ICT can also play an essential role in promoting sustainable development, said Peter Haddawy, director of the United Nations University International Institute for Software Technology (UNU-IIST), which is based in Macau.

UNU-IIST is a branch of the United Nations University, founded as the academic arm of the UN. The UNU-IIST is based here because Macau “stepped up” some 20 years ago and put up the funding to establish the institute.

The Government will continue to help get seniors digitally enabled, Minister for Seniors Ginny Andersen announced today.

Six providers of digital training will deliver essential digital skills courses for up to 5,000 learners around the country.

“Being online is increasingly important for participation in modern life, but as many as one in four older people do not access the internet regularly,” Ginny Andersen said.

Government launched the eSkills Malta Foundation that will see various stakeholders working together to jointly create the skills base and life-long quality growth required for a digitally enabled knowledge economy.

Addressing a press conference, Edward Zammit Lewis, Parliamentary Secretary for Competitiveness and Economic Growth, explained the importance of eSkills for Malta to have a thriving digital economy.

The Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA) in collaboration with the Parliamentary Secretariat for Competitiveness and Economic Growth has launched the Student Placement Programme for employers seeking temporary additional ICT and ICT-related human resources. This year the Student Placement Programme has been significantly improved and made more attractive to employers as Government will be once again co-financing 50 per cent of the students' wage together with other additional services which have been added to benefit employers and students.

Technologies have taken over the way we communicate, think, travel and learn and have infiltrated our lives in ways that no one would have thought possible 40 years ago, when the Defence Advance Research Project Agency (DARPA) was developing its first data gram network which evolved into what is now known as the internet.

The past four decades have seen information and communication technologies (ICT) evolve to such an extent that infrastructure is no longer at the top of the business agenda. As long as we are provided with the essentials, we can really run multinational companies from anywhere. Today, we are living in extremely exciting times and this is what essentially made the ICT Gozo Malta (ICTGM) project team believe that ICT is an ideal opportunity for Gozo and its economy.

There is a clear need for ICT professionals to supplement their academic education through continuing professional development that focuses on a selection of current and emerging software technologies and tools.

The demand for experts in cutting-edge software technologies is driven by the ICT industry and local companies sporadically complain having to train fresh university graduates in specific technologies that are used within their organisation.

“Even though we have seen more female participation in the IT workforce, recently there remains a significant imbalance, far more so than in other disciplines such as finance,” according to Matthew Camilleri, managing director at Castille Resources Ltd, a specialist recruitment agency for the ICT and finance sectors.

MTN South Africa said it took a major step towards bridging the digital skills gap by launching the MTN Skills Academy.

The platform aims to equip young people with the necessary skills and knowledge to succeed in the digital age, providing a range of courses and training programmes in areas such as coding, web development, digital marketing, and data analytics to name a few.

Under the project Connect for Change, Fawema is establishing ICT laboratories in primary schools and Teachers Training Colleges as well as applying a mobile phone SMS set-up system to connect with communities.

Planning and Resource Management Assistant Minister Mohd Naroden Majais said rural folk should not follow the current trend of using blogs or websites to spread incorrect information and humiliate others.

“There have been many incidences where the IT tools are being used to smear others, giving inaccurate information, which can confuse people and causing division among us,” he said.

She said BN needed to double its efforts to master ICT, particularly the new media, in facing the cyber war and opposition attacks involving arising issues and twisted facts.

"The politics of today is a war based on public perception and in this age of technology which uses a lot of ICT facilities, anyone who is skilled in using ICT will have the edge in influencing the minds of Internet users, who are mostly the young," she told Bernama.