Speaking with the Sunday Guardian, chief executive officer of iGovTT, Kendall Tull said there was a number of things happening in collaboration with the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector. “The next step we are looking at right now is a pilot programme that examines mobile devices across all platforms and the ways that we can integrate these productivity tools into Government.”
As part of iGovTT’s mandate to champion the innovative deployment of ICT tools for the transformation of service delivery in government, the pilot will explore the various ways in which users can be more accessible while on the go, while being able to collaborate not only with each other but also in terms of accessing information.
“There is no need to be tethered to an office or limited to access if one only has access to WiFi. We want to explore how do we move beyond just email and phone calls on these devices.”
Three user groups within iGovTT have been defined to participate in the pilot—namely executive users, technical users and general users. Each of these user types will be given either a tablet, smartphone or both, installed with a base of software applications (apps) enabling them to perform various functions similar to those performed on their workstations, currently either on a PC or notebook.
Tull added, “The pilot will also look at available solutions that can create suppositories for documents and information to enable government personnel to collaborate seamlessly and to assess what is necessary for that to happen here in Trinidad and Tobago.”
Making Govt officials more accessible
iGovTT’s mobile devices pilot will explore the potential of mobile applications to make officials within the Government more accessible. “If a minister on the go has a certain need from another ministry, wouldn’t it be a good idea if the permanent secretary wanted to have a word with the Minster of Education you can have a video conference and share a document via a mobile device and then make amendments?” asked Tull.
“The pilot is looking at developing applications around those usage scenarios, finding out the requirements both in terms of hardware and software and not just on the mobile device but also on the back end of things.” iGovTT’s chairman, Atiba Phillips believes that this is the necessary direction. “We have back end infrastructure available within the Government that includes connectivity and storage. Now we need to drive usage.
At the same time, we’ve looked at what is happening around the world. There is the consumerisation of IT. Consumers now have their own devices and people are becoming accustomed to certain interactions. They have their tablets and their smartphones.
We are trying to enable native technology to make Government more effective and more efficient. We want to enable a scenario where there is a common flow of information that is available and useful to Government. We want to be able to allow Skype-like applications backed by the necessary security for Government.”
Phillips added, “We want to use these types of applications to encourage greater collaboration and efficiency within government and to also improve response time for crucial functions.” Regarding challenges, Phillips said, “We need to work with key stakeholders and get them on board and that is the purpose of the pilot. It’s all about awareness. Our conference in the next few weeks will reveal the plans along this thread.”
Feedback will be mandatory from each user on their experience and this information will fall under a series of pre-defined categories including functionality, user friendliness, reliability/stability, performance, mobility and user acceptance. Technical users will have two additional categories namely security and integration and interpretability.
Growing the ICT sector locally
Apart from the mobile devices pilot, iGovTT is proposing to tackle ICT development through another channel, namely innovation centres. “Under the broad National ICT initiative, we are in the proposal stages regarding creating innovation centres targeting certain technology models available. For example one centre will focus on Microsoft which has created certain technologies that are used the world over. This can include digital security and education material development.
Other centres will be looking at other areas that relate to ICT. The idea being that we want to create an environment that encourages the development of the ICT sector to support the Government and the citizens at large” explained Tull. “For example, if we have a session at a centre for certain qualified individuals and they come up with an application, iGOvTT can look at the app and if we believe it is a good idea and can improve some aspect of Government processes, we would purchase the app for deployment.
So it is not just a training workshop with idea generation and no implementation. There is a very real link between the innovation centre, conceptualising and producing the app and then taking it to market.” Through these innovation centres, Tull believes that a vibrant subsystem can be created. “We want to grow the ICT sector locally.
We want to target people coming out of UTT and UWI who have ideas, so that we can work with them through these centres to develop these ideas into real solutions. In that way it not only provides a mechanism for the Government to access such services but also to create viable markets for these ideas, incite career growth straight out of university and also for people to become entrepreneurs by providing the solutions in ICT that we need as a government and as a country. This is where we will see a shift in the sector.” The innovations centres have not been approved by Government.
Phillips believes that the ICT sector is key to improving how the Government works. “The real impact of ICT to increase efficiency in Government will be seen when lot of these internal processes are deployed. Then we can start rolling out similar citizens services.
It will be much easier to build customer-facing applications once the internal systems are built. This will get the public sector to realise that ICT can improve the way they work. One no longer needs to ask ten people for access to a document. There will be access via these new system. It makes their job easier. Then we can move to self-service solutions for customers as well,” said Phillips.
“The value-add of iGovtt is the management and control of the back end that we have so that we can hand out tablets to ministers with apps installed and networked with other ministers which cause that device to be of much greater use. We are about proving that in this pilot.” Further details on the pilot and the innovations centres will be revealed at the iGovtt conference which takes place on July 10 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Port-of-Spain.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Michelle A Eng Leang
Quelle/Source: Trinidad Guardian, 10.06.2012
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