12th GCC eGovernment Forum comes to a close

Organized by Datamatix, the forum was held from 20-24 May 2006 and discussed the future challenges and strategies for GCC e-Government initiatives.

As the largest eGovernment forum in the region, it showcased regional eGovernment developments and discussed successful practices via global case studies. This year the theme of the conference was 'Transforming Government Services with the use of eGovernment'.

Some of the issues that were discussed at the forum included Government leadership's role in creating the right environment for transforming government services, eGovernment Technology Transforming regional Government Administrations, Businesses & Citizens at the Centre of Middle East eGovernment Portals and Global and Middle East eGovernment Case Studies.

Speaking about the event, Ali Al Kamali, Managing Director, Datamatix said, "In order to accelerate the process of e-government readiness, the Forum urges the GCC countries in the region to formulate detailed plans aimed at executing their ICT policies and strategies, and undertake new initiatives that will raise the IT literacy levels of all sectors of society and create awareness among the general public on the importance of IT."

"The GCC countries should follow the initiative of King Abdulla of Saudi Arabia who allocated SR3 billion to set up infrastructure facilities required for providing 150 e-government services within the next five years. The Forum concluded that the time is high for the region to develop a clear insight on the challenges facing e-Government in the future, infrastructure, integration and re-engineering strategies for GCC e-Government implementations," he added.

The keynote address on the final day was presented by Mr. Mahmood Al Bastaki, Chief Information Officer, Ports, Customs & Free zone Corporation on 'Transforming eGovernment'. His presentation dealt with the transformation of e-Government utilizing best practices to benefit citizens, businesses and government and he explored the concept and vision of digital cities.

Mr. Ibrahim Tayfour, Director, Al Hasseb, UAE spoke on the '21st century techno-city' and provided the example of the municipality role in the UAE. He said, "The way ahead for creating a techno-city is to define strategic and tactical objectives, restructure and reorganize, imbed change management into core functions, include stockholders and citizens in the decision making process and think global and act local."

Dr. Zahra Al-Rawahi, Assistant Professor and Computer & Information Technology Chairperson, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman addressed the session on 'Why GCC eGovernment projects cannot claim major success or benefits for citizens or businesses'. During her presentation she said, "The new big wave in worldwide eGovernment projects will be from eGovernment to eInclusion. EInclusion necessitates a shift in the focus from technology to promoting equal access to ICT centered economic, social and cultural opportunities to people. It will encourage the effective participation of individuals and communities in all dimensions of the knowledge based society and economy through their access to ICT."

Professor Ray Hackney, Chair of Information Systems, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK spoke on 'Managing Cities in the Knowledge Economy: knowledge, perceptions and practice'. He said "In order to manage cities to become knowledge drivers we must instigate initiatives to create a climate to nurture knowledge workers, invest in online connectivity to embrace citizen engagement, invest in technological and social knowledge infrastructure, build programs to stimulate innovation and creativity and develop culture change for institutions to adapt to the knowledge economy."

The session on 'eGovernment: Connecting the dots for citizen centric services" was addressed by Mr. Salim Edde, Regional Manager, Public Sector Middle East North Africa, Cisco Systems. In his highly informative and tailor made session, he stressed the importance of citizen centric services and role of eGovernment in making life easier. He also pointed out that the three major concepts of future Government are Intelligent Information Network, Networked Virtual organization and public and private participation.

Dr. Fahad Al-Twaijry, IT Specialist, Gulf Cooperation Council, KSA, presented the final session in the forum on 'Benefits and constraints on Implementing GCC e-Government gateway'. Commenting on the need of sustainable eGovernment he said, "Sustainable modernization of public administration is the continuity and deepening of the use and implementation of eGovernment to meet the citizen/business needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs."

"GCC should stress in projecting a five-year strategy to boost the digital economy, and should emulate the EU. Commission where they adopted the initiative "i2010: European Information Society 2010" to foster growth and jobs in the information society and media industries. i2010 is a comprehensive strategy for modernizing and deploying all EU policy instruments to encourage the development of the digital economy, regulatory instruments, research and partnerships with industry," he added

Professionals including top designation executives, senior government officials, ministerial delegations, CIOs, IT managers, business leaders, analysts as well as academics from leading organizations attended the forum. It was the largest meeting ground for professionals from the regional e-Government sector and provided participants with many opportunities for networking and building business contacts.

The summit was sponsored and supported by leading organizations like Cisco Systems, ZPF Information Technology, Datel, Computer Associates, Dubai eGovernment, Amricon, Tejari, Sun Microsystems, HP Invent, DTK Computer, Itqan, eCompany, Innokat, Hummingbird, Konica Minolta and Abu Dhabi Education Zone. The official carrier for the event was KLM SkyTeam.