IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Governor Fayemi will be performing the ground-breaking ceremony of the Phase 1 of the optical fibre cable laying project for Ado-Ekiti, the state capital on Tuesday.

The federal government has said going by its projections, digital economy would contribute more than 45 per cent to the Gross Domestic Products (GDP) given that the contributions of the ICT sector to the GDP stands at 17 per cent.

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, who disclosed this at the weekend, noted the COVID 19 pandemic is fast-tracking adoption of digital technology in the country.

Addressing a workshop organised to mark the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD) here on Friday, Paudel called on to bring projects for laying optical fibre along highways and feeder roads. “The government will arrange the required funds,” he said.

The project, which would connect all the 53 nations of the African Union (AU) by a satellite and fiber-optic network, is to provide tele-education, tele-medicine, internet, Nideo-conferencing and VOIP services, and also support e-governance, e-commerce and effective communication among the nations.

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Friday asked the Ministry of Information and Technology to ensure reliable and cheap broadband connectivity across the country, particularly in remote areas, to ensure availability of digital facilities to the common man.

Addressing a ceremony at a contract signing of Broadband for Sustainable Development Projects in FATA; Khyber, Mohmand Agency, and DI Khan, the prime minister commended the initiative and said it would help bridge the gap between the urban and rural areas by providing modern facilities to the people at their doorstep.

Qatar’s thriving digital infrastructure offers huge opportunities through innovation and technological advancements.

By establishing a robust digital infrastructure and leveraging cutting-edge technology, the country aims to enhance economic and productivity growth.

Speaking to The Peninsula , Mohamed Suhail, Head of Execution at Siemens Qatar said, “Qatar is moving to make itself a smart city with lot of initiatives especially focusing on sustainability. We have a lot of initiatives which are coming up and Qatar is going in the right direction.” Siemens has a lot of projects and solutions that we are providing from our side.

The Rwanda project is part of the World Bank’s $424m Regional Communication Infrastructure Program which is designed to improve the regional communications infrastructure and increase the deployment of e-government in Southern and Eastern Africa.

The money that was cleared through an International Development Association (IDA) financing grant for the Regional Communication Infrastructure Program - Rwanda Project (RCIPRW), is supposed to increase the availability of broadband to more than 700 Rwandan institutions including schools, health centers and local government administrative centers. IDA is the concessional lending arm of the World Bank.

When complete, a national backbone will enable Rwandans to use e-applications and for the government to execute e-services and business and information exchange that need high speed broadband Internet.

The contract obliges KT to provide technology, equipment and relevant application materials to the government of Rwanda.

Acceleration of digital adoption across infrastructure development in Saudi Arabia has been multifold, implemented at the supply chain level, in building smart cities, and leading to strengthened investments towards "digital infra," panellists deliberated on the first panel of Day 1 of Construction Week's recently-concluded virtual KSA Infrastructure Summit.

The first panel of the conference - Analysing the Current State of Saudi Arabia's Infrastructure Sector - comprised Depa Interior's Director, Abdoullah Albizreh, the KSA Country Manager at ACCIONA Cultural Engineering, Daniel Orti, Mohamed Saad, Senior Development Director at Diriyah Gate Development Authority, and finally Autodesk's Senior Director for Infrastructure and Business Strategy, Theo Agelopoulos.

• Mansour Al-Mushaiti: Protecting the environment is a significant challenge in agricultural and food advancement, and sustainable development is crucial for economic growth
• Experts discussed the crucial role of infrastructure management in smart city operations, emphasizing the use of new technologies like intelligent transportation systems

Investment in infrastructure is pivotal in fostering sustainable development and facilitating the evolution of smart cities, the deputy minister of environment, water and agriculture has said.

The four centres – iHub, m:Lab, naiLab and 88mph – will access high speed internet to enable developers and startups to launch and browse their applications faster on the web.

Going by the tagline “Building the African Internet,” the company is mainly known for launching Africa’s first broadband submarine cable system along the eastern and southern coastlines in 2009. This year’s initiatives revolve mainly around ICT and social development. Community projects across Africa are being carried out in an effort to further the company’s social investment programme in the name of Foundation Day.

The cable has been landed received and commissioned by no less a person but President Ernest Bia Koroma. Since the landing of the cable many Sierra Leoneans both home and abroad are still asking why the landing of the cable is unable to improve the country’s ICT sector soonest.

Being the catalysts of growth, smart cities are founded on a technology-powered infrastructure. Digitization in global economies has led the way to a transformative shift to smart security, universal convenience and accelerated advancements. By 2026, smart cities have been expected to generate an economic benefit of USD 20 trillion globally. Unfortunately, crimes and offenses are also becoming high-tech, challenging the balance in the socio-economic ecosystem. To secure the frontiers of growth, security operations need to be spearheaded by reliable and pervasive technological solutions that also elevate the prospects of unified development.

With a focus on sustainable urban development, the concept of smart city has never been quite as prevalent or as compelling as it is right now, says Nelson Thomas, Associate Director, Pace

The concept of a smart city has progressed with frequent innovations in ICT and an ever-increasing number of devices that now connect to the internet.

Data collected from such devices across all sources are stored in the cloud or on servers and used by government and private firms to improve quality of life and of course for commercial gain.

As a result of the underwater cable, costs with the ICT sector have been gradually reduced over the past three years. As a result, penetration has also begun to be increased in the East African country.

The UAE also ranked 1st in the Arab Region and 4th globally in launching and using 5G networks

The UAE has been ranked first in the Arab region and seventh globally in the Telecommunication Infrastructure Index (TII), according to the UN E-Government Survey 2020. It also ranked second in Asia, according to the index.

In addition, the UAE made significant progress in the global competitiveness indicators of the telecommunications sector in the report, maintaining the 1st place globally in the mobile subscription index, and advancing from 2nd to 1st globally in the mobile broadband Internet subscription index. As for the Internet users index, the UAE moved up to 5th from 13th globally, achieving a qualitative leap in the fixed broadband subscription index, as it moved up to 29th from 68th in the world.

NOFBI, a joint initiative between the Directorate of eGovernment, Telkom Kenya and Soulco, a Belgian communications firm that specialises in the delivery of last mile solutions, connects 29 counties under the County Connectivity project.

Smart cities have been established to optimise city functions and promote economic growth, whilst also improving the quality of life for the growing population. Local authorities have deployed vast IoT networks and other smart technologies across cityscapes to track real-time information and improve day-to-day public services.

However, the rise in natural disasters, such as the recent wildfires and storms, calls for a far more resilient infrastructure, one that can provide early warning signs and enable more emergency response teams and authorities to be more proactive when monitoring for such events.