IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Both governments today signed a Framework Agreement worth more than $6.2 billion under Building Canada.

In fact the city has been short listed as one of the world's smartest cities by a New York-based think-tank that focuses on economic development in the broadband economy.

The Intelligent Community Forum lauds the city's highly-skilled workforce, its burgeoning technology sector and broadband initiatives ranging from e-government in Victoria to wireless connectivity in the city.

Eastern and southern Ontario rural communities will get more broadband access as part of $6.2 billion+ package of new infrastructure investments signed July 24 by the two governments. Officials will work with rural communities in those regions to identify potential projects to expand broadband coverage.

The Government of St. Maarten in association with the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) launched the St Maarten ICT Week on Sunday 15th August with a grand Opening Ceremony where speakers emphasized how fundamentally the world has changed as a result of the rapid evolution of information and communication technologies (ICT).

The first activity of St Maarten’s ICT week, the 6th Caribbean Internet Governance Forum has as its theme: Designing a Caribbean information society. The theme was chosen in response to the recognition by Caribbean governments that competitive advantage must be built on the basis of knowledge and the effective use of information and communication technologies as enablers for social and economic development.

“We want to have full data and video capabilities on all our devices wherever we are.” In Japan, she said, 50 per cent of the average revenue per user (ARPU) is derived from mobile data, as compared to a low five per cent for the Caribbean region. This disparity presents both an opportunity and a challenge for regulators and governments in the region to make efforts to grow that demand.

"There is certainly a need if not to reinvent the economies of the Caribbean, to at least think differently on how to proceed," Manning said on Tuesday night while delivering the feature address at the 20th Anniversary Gala of the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann's.

They will also review progress reports on ICT development as CARICOM pushes to meet this aspect of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a press release from the CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, said.

Among the goals for the gathering are to discuss and approve the draft Regional Digital Development Strategy (RDDS) and the strategic objectives of the Implementation Plan.

The CARICOM Secretariat has spearheaded the formation of the plan in order to guide the ICT activities and initiatives in the region, and to utilize ICT as a critical development tool.

The meetings start the day following World Telecommunications and Information Society Day (WTISD) which is marked on 17 May. This year the Prime Minister of Grenada, Tillman Thomas will deliver a message to be broadcasted across the Region on this year’s theme `Protecting Children in Cyberspace’. The Prime Minister has responsibility for Science and Technology including ICT in the CARICOM Quasi Cabinet.

The Caribbean Information Society (CARIB-IS) Portal was implemented by the Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) Programme of the CARICOM Secretariat. The project was supported by the European Union under the Ninth European Development Fund to benefit all the CARIFORUM Member States.

A release from the Caribbean Community Secretariat (Caricom) explained that a strategy is required to develop the framework for a Regional Broadband Policy, which is viewed as critical for advancing the Caricom Single Market and Economy and facilitating regional development.

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.

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.

Das World Bank Institute (WBI) http://wbi.worldbank.org arbeitet seit 2007 an demokratiebildenden Maßnahmen in der Demokratischen Republik Kongo (DRK). Seit 2010 versucht man sich an der Umsetzung von Bürgerhaushalten, etwa in der kriegszerüttenden Region Süd-Kivu. Dort führte die Beteiligung der Bevölkerung nicht nur zur Umsetzung erster Projekte, sondern auch zu verstärktem Vertrauen zwischen Bürgern und Politik, berichtet der ICT4Gov-Teamleiter Boris Weber http://ict4gov.net gegenüber pressetext. Ein wichtiger Kommunikationskanal ist dabei der Mobilfunk, dessen Nutzung im Land stark ansteigt.

He made the remarks during a speech at the 2007 IT Month organized by the Taipei Computer Association held at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall 1, which opened yesterday and will run through Dec. 9.

There are 144 million households in China using the internet; 97 million of them are using broadband. Due to the imbalance of economic and social development, there is a big gap in digital technology between eastern and western regions, and urban and rural areas. According to a survey issued by the ministry in January, by the end of last year, 20.2% of the people in urban areas are internet users, while the number of internet users in rural areas only accounts for 3.1% of the total population, creating a gap of 6.5 times. People in rural areas are facing 'information poverty'. It is urgent to narrow such a gap, said Xi Guohua.

The project, which began in 2007, is China’s first full-service integrated network platform to be built in a rural area, and is designed to bring information technology to 16 cities, 129 counties and 130,000 villages in the province.