Other major areas of cooperation between Oman and IDA are done through e-Cop and Oman's eGovernment Architecture Framework (OeGAF) with the ITA. With OeGAF, the Sultanate's Government entities seek to seamlessly integrate their IT Infrastructure and collaborate to deliver better citizen services. The e-Cop is establishing a national Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) for the Government. The ST LogiTrack had implemented their innovative Radio frequency Identification (RFID) Solution, ELiMS to the Sultan Qaboos University's main library.
Shaik Umar was in Muscat as part of the IDA delegation that is taking part in Comex 2010. "As a sign of warm relations between Oman and Singapore the IDA delegation of Singapore Infocomm companies are participating in the Comex 2010," said Umar. Laying stress on co-operation between Oman and Singapore in ICT field Umar said, "The IDA and ITA extended a memorandum of understanding (MoU) during IDA CEO, RADM(NS) Ronnie Tay's visit to the Sultanate in October last year.
The extended MoU will continue to encourage collaboration in the use of ICT in government and in economic sectors such as education, finance, healthcare and tourism, and promoting exchanges on the use of ICT by the government and private sectors." Commenting on reasons behind participation in the Comex 2010 and his expectations from the exhibition Umar said such exhibitions give us an opportunity to showcase our IT solution services for private and government establishments.
He said Oman is moving in the direction so far as the country's progress in IT sector is concerned. Going by international rankings in using electronic equipment and IT solutions, Oman's ranking has improved and one good thing about the country is its desire for long term investment in the IT sector. "The IDA is looking forward to developing a multiple library system in the Sultanate with the help of the ITA. The idea of electronic library is rolling up. After completion it will cater to normal needs, future needs and electronic needs of people," said Umar.
"The library can manage thousands and thousands books and other e-contents for the benefit of the citizen. The beauty of the e-library is its accessibility and people can borrow books from any of the libraries linked through the programme," he said. Commenting on Singapore's capabilities in IT sector Umar said the Global Information Technology Report 2009-2010, by World Economic Forum had measured the impact of ICT on the development process and the competitiveness of nations.
Singapore ranked second as the most networked economy in the world. Middle East improved in networked readiness, with most countries appearing in the top half of the NRI rankings, including Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman and United Arab Emirates. Elaborating Singapore's IT activities Umar said mobile penetration in Singapore as of 2009 was over 137 per cent or more than 6.8 million mobile subscriptions.
Given the pervasiveness of mobile communication, the government has put in place the Mobile Government Programme under its i-Gov 2010 masterplan to deliver innovative services via the mobile channel that were not feasible with the Internet channel or counters. "The plan is aimed at making government e-services more accessible to a wider customer base and increase convenience for those who need to transact on the move. To date, more than 300 public services are accessible through mobile technology in Singapore."
"An example is the eCallUp by the Ministry of Defence where National Servicemen (NSmen) will receive SMS and email alerts to inform them of call-up notice, instead of receiving a hardcopy notification via the mail. This approach dispenses away with the hardcopy notification, reduces both costs of printing and mailing for MINDEF and improves the turnaround time to notify the NSmen," said Umar.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Kaushalendra Singh
Quelle/Source: Zawya, 01.05.2010
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