IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The live demonstration of patient treatment at HFH was also witnessed by US Ambassador Cameron Munter and his wife Dr Marilyn Wyatt since the project is a joint collaboration between Pakistan and US governments.

On Friday, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government requested the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to hold polls using biometrics as a pilot project only in UC Ghazi, Haripur. This was communicated in a letter issued by Secretary LG Hafizur Rehman.

ICT helps governments to deliver services to the citizens with greater accountability responsiveness and sensitivity. Using ICT we could eliminate the classic hierarchical bureaucratic system, as information can be simultaneously shared across different levels and people. As volumes of transactions and information can be electronically handled and delivered over a wider area through web, qualitative services become possible in least time, in least cost, in least difficulty and in greater convenience.

Researchers have found that corruption severely affects a country’s development because it takes resources away from the economy, leads to uncertainty and impairs investment. Administrative reforms, often, have focused on procedural details and restructuring of systems and processes of government organizations. The basic objective of these reforms is to enhance capacities of the systems. ICTs can be used and are being used now to give further impetus to the process.

His radical and innovative projects of e-governance and mobile governance were appreciated by World Bank and international media like CNN, BBC, New York Times, His contributions as the PITB chairman are indeed commendable, soon after joining his charge, he eradicated corruption from the board and the PITB is now playing an instrumental role in assisting the government to improve public sector performance.

A senior official at USF on Sunday told APP that an amount of Rs. 1.06 billion has so far been disbursed as subsidy, saying special emphasis is being paid to educational institutions, whereby the subsidy winners are required to set-up Computer Labs (Educational Broadband Centres) with Broadband in ultimately 2,000 higher secondary schools and colleges.

Contracts have been awarded for 1,173 such centres out of which around 800 centres have been established in their respective areas.

Ammar Jaffri, renowned ICT expert and former Additional Director General, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), spoke at the seminar on ‘ICTs for all: Pakistan vision-2015’ organized by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) on Monday.

The country has failed to turn the opportunity of exceptional technological advancement into socio-economic development in society especially for millions of poor living in rural areas.

Presiding over 27th meeting of the Board of Directors of USF (Universal Service Fund), he said these should be fully equipped with latest technology, ensuring the efficient and effective connectivity both domestic and overseas to the people of the region.

The meeting was informed so far 994 IT centres at UC levels have been set up with the direction that process should be speeded up in providing state of the art ICT services in underserved and unserved areas under the mandate of USF.

UAF Vice Chancellor Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan and Ahmad Afzal, the ICT Research & Development Fund solicitation and evaluation general manager discussed the matter on Monday.

Afzal said the time had come to benefit from technological advancement for economic progress.

After three hours of waiting, our turn finally came and a grumpy old man handed my sister a few forms to fill. These forms were to be submitted at another window along with the attestation fee receipt which was to be obtained from a bank across the HEC building. After spending half a day of waiting in queues, we were able to submit all the documents only to find out that the attested documents will be returned three weeks later.

Chairman NADRA Tariq Malik in a press release issued Today said NADRA is all-set to carry out fingerprint authentication through its Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) in a bid to assist Election Tribunals. The tribunals are established by Election Commission of Pakistan which will hear and decide election petitions in post-general election 2013 scenario, he added.

Expediting efforts for computerising state records and moving towards e-governance, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to pack up its official website and replace it with a user-friendly, responsive and dynamic web portal.

Directorate of Information and Technology officials confirmed the development to The Express Tribune.

Project in charge Ghufran Javed said the portal’s security features had already been tested by their developers. “We have used superior technology which cannot be hacked easily,” he added. He said the website would be mobile-friendly and run glitch free on Android and iOS smartphones.

Interestingly, senior officials at the Sindh Chief Minister’s House and Governor’s House are habitual latecomers, however, no system is in place to check late comers or those leaving office early, sources said.

Countries around the globe are investing more and more in the IT sector to accelerate their economy. There are numerous government branches across the globe set up entirely with tech development in mind – Silicon Valley was built on public funds for the sole reason of tech expansion. Technology stocks offer investors a lot of profitability in fact; the sector offers the highest returns of all ranked market sectors.

He said the government had introduced good governance through E-government in different sectors which had benefited the masses. He said that an IT university of international standard would soon be set up in Lahore for providing latest education to the students in different sectors of information technology to meet the demand of IT experts in the country.

The implementation of the system was reviewed at a meeting held under the chairmanship of Chancellor and attended, among others, by Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Saiyid Nazir Ahmed, Faculty Dean Dr Najib Ahmed Siddiqui, Registrar Shah Mahmood Hussain Syed, Director Finance Munawar Husain and other concerned officials.

On the occasion a multi-media presentation was also given to the Chancellor and it was informed that this system will replace the manual card punching attendance system.

Expresses optimism over contestants accepting results of next general elections

Prime Minister Imran Khan inspected Pakistani-made electronic voting machine (EVM) developed by the science ministry on Sunday, and expressed optimism that "all contestants will accept election results".

"Inspecting Pakistani-made electronic voting machines by our Science & Technology Ministry," PM Imran said on Twitter.

The future is digital and the digital race has already begun. Who will lead and who will follow is subject to the degree of digitalization and ICT readiness of the socio-economic national structures of nations. For everything from internet banking, e-commerce and online activism to e-governance and e-health; going digital with high speed and high quality is the only option to stay relevant to this global socio-economic transformation.

The increasing digitization of life has brought about drastic transformation in socio-cultural and economic landscape of Pakistan during the last two decades with exponential growth in use of electronic gadgets and tools of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs).

The electronic gadgets have become a commonplace phenomenon of everyday life in almost every household even in the remotest parts of the country. Therefore, if anything happens worth watching or reading in any part of the globe, it does not go unnoticed on social media. Similarly, the trending (the stuff of your choice) that appears on the screen keeps the viewer mentally engaged for hours.

No. The title doesn’t suggest that we have been living inside a cave in Pakistan. You’re reading this blog on your gadget and it says 4G/LTE on the top. You pay your utility bills without leaving your desk. You are now able to apply for your driving license online and yes, mobile wallets like Keenu and SimSim are disrupting the market too. So yeah, we are getting there. Gradually, but with a direction!

Globally, digitalization has become the cornerstone of daily living. It is almost impossible to think back to a time when everything was not digital. In Pakistan, hindrances to achieve the benchmark that the world has created in digitalization are numerous. Let’s highlight them specifically.

The experts at a webinar on doughnut economics expressed that the concept of regenerative economics intended to revive the human-nature relationship to co-exist in harmony would revolutionize urban development in the developing countries.

The Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad, organized a special webinar on Doughnut Economics: From concept to practice, said a news release here Saturday.