A very key report has recently been published by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations. This publication is entitled the “E-Government Survey 2012, e-Government for the People” and its main objective is to understand and present the degree to which each UN member country has managed to utilise e-government services as a means to help it achieve its economic, social and environmental goals.
Robert Madelin, the director-general for information society and the media in the European Commission, said Malta is in the leading pack of EU countries in terms of speed and uptake of fast broadband internet, but it loses some places in rankings in terms of how this uptake leads to competitiveness. However, the need to cater for the demand of high-skill ICT jobs is being tackled.
It said PL spokesman Michael Farrugia is saying that in government Labour would take the internet to every home. But according to a survey by the Malta Communications Authority last May, 98% of students aged between 9-14 confirmed they have the internet at home, and 58% of them even have it in their room, the government said.
Read more: MT: Government says PL does not know what is going on in ICT sector
Back in 1999, the biggest concern for those using computers was that the “millennium bug” would stop the world. I recall that in 2000, we were still struggling to establish a government presence on the internet. Email had been in use for a short while and that was the first thing that had an “e” in front of it to show that it had evolved to ride the digital revolution.
Read more: MT: Defying the sceptics: next generation public services
The benchmarking set out in the Global Information Technology Report is based on a proven framework, developed in 2002 and refined year-on-year, namely the Network Readiness Index. This Index is a composite of 10 pillars aggregating the results of 53 variables aimed at measuring the application and the impacts of ICT. This year’s assessment covered 142 economies: once again, the Nordic countries confirmed their status as advanced digital economies, with Sweden attaining excellent results in all pillars.