Published by Oleg Petrov February 1st, 2010
in eDevelopment and eGovernment.
Join us via live webcast and Twitter/social media at 13:30 – 17:00 Dhaka time (GMT+6) on Feb 3! http://go.worldbank.org/GXNX9ZH450
Countries are being transformed by Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) daily. Singapore, for one, has made important advances in the area of global competitiveness by positioning ICT at the core of national innovation and development strategies. The World Bank’s Global ICT Department, GDLN and International Enterprise (IE) Singapore would like to cordially invite you to the Singapore ICT Day for South Asia featuring Global Dialogue Workshop held in Dhaka, Bangladesh with country clients participation via videoconference and live webcast.
The workshop will share the role of ICT in the public sector transformation agenda and Singapore’s success in eGovernment via close collaboration with the private sector. Experts from Singapore Government CIO Office and leading Singapore ICT companies, namely, IDA International, CrimsonLogic, NCS, novaCITYNETS and Ecquaria will also share highlights about Singapore’s 30 years of eGovernment journey, iN2015 vision and key initiatives, eGovernance required to ensure successful eTransformation, concept of Public Services Infrastructure for effective deployment, and in promoting a World-class Pro-enterprise business environment.
This Global Dialogue Workshop will provide participants with key insights on how Singapore has transformed from a tranquil port town into a First World city. These insights will include key eGovernment trends, industry drivers/restraints, as well as case studies of eGovernment implementation.
Countries participating via videoconferencing are: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan (2 locations), and Sri Lanka.
Live Webcast:
Published by Oleg Petrov January 20th, 2010
in Climate Change.
Watch live or recorded webcast of the Sustainable Development Forum session organized by Global ICT Department on Jan. 20, 2010 at 9:00-10:30 am EST: IT for Climate-Smart Development: “Not Your Grandfather’s Bank”
Webcast: www.worldbank.org/edevelopment/live
You can also post your questions and comments in the space below
Published by Oleg Petrov December 15th, 2009
in eDevelopment and eGovernment.
Within the last decade, more than 60 countries and international organizations have developed nearly 275 policy documents related with the use of Open Source in public sector. The rationale behind most of these policy initiatives is the improvement of governance through transparent and effective use of information technology budgets in public sector, as well as economic/engineering benefits of reusable open source software. A majority of these open source initiatives (~70%) have been accepted and final actions have been taken by mid 2008. Suitable business models have been developed to implement these policies and successful public sector solutions based on open source software have emerged. Continue reading ‘Exploring the Results of Governmental Open Source Software Policies: Brazil Experience’
Published by Oleg Petrov December 15th, 2009
in eDevelopment.
Streaming live from Chisinau, Moldova on December 16, 2009 at www.worldbank.org/edevelopment/live
Published by Oleg Petrov December 15th, 2009
in eDevelopment.
Streaming live from Chisinau, Moldova on December 15 – 16, 2009 at www.worldbank.org/edevelopment/live
Published by Oleg Petrov October 19th, 2009
in Health and eDevelopment.
The World Bank Day @ mHealth Summit
October 28th, 9:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. Washington DC time
Participate Online
- follow the event on Social Media: Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Flickr. Twitter hashtags will be #mhealth09 and #MHS09
This unique one-day workshop brings together lessons, innovations, and perspectives from over 30 practitioners and policy makers from key organization in the m-Health field. The workshop discussed specific case studies and country perspectives on mHealth and address scaling up mobile innovations in World Bank Health Sector Projects. World Bank @ mHealth Day is an integral part of the mHealth Summit focusing on Mobile Technologies as a platform for health research and health care delivery. The mHealth Summit is an unprecedented event that will bring together researchers, policy-makers, collaborators and visionaries from around the world to exchange ideas, novel approaches, research and findings surrounding mHealth issues both in the United States and in developing countries.
http://go.worldbank.org/MP5IY2CJA0
Published by Oleg Petrov September 28th, 2009
in eDevelopment.
Countries are being transformed by Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) daily. Singapore, for one, has made important advances in the area of global competitiveness by positioning ICT at the core of national innovation and development strategies. In collaboration with the World Bank’s Global ICT Department and WB Executive Director Office for Southeast Asia, International Enterprise (IE) Singapore would like to cordially invite you to the first Singapore ICT Day@ World Bank featuring Global Dialogue Workshop with country clients participation titled “The Singapore Experience – Ingredients for Successful Nation-wide eTransformation”.
The workshop will share the role of ICT in the public sector transformation agenda and Singapore’s success in eGovernment via close collaboration with the private sector. Experts from Singapore Government CIO Office and leading Singapore ICT companies, namely, IDA International, CrimsonLogic, NCS and novaCITYNETS will also share highlights about Singapore’s 30 years of eGovernment journey, iN2015 vision and key initiatives, eGovernance required to ensure successful eTransformation, and the concept of Public Services Infrastructure for effective deployment.
This Global Dialogue Workshop will provide participants with key insights on how Singapore has transformed from a tranquil port town into a First World city. These insights will include key eGovernment trends, industry drivers/restraints, as well as case studies of eGovernment implementation.
http://go.worldbank.org/E5P4WH1K60
‘Explosive’ is the only way to describe mobile phone growth. Over half of the world’s 6.5 billion people now use a mobile and over 60 percent of mobile phone users live in developing
countries. Mobile-based innovations are quickly emerging as the new frontier in transforming government, health, banking, education and many other sectors due to fast growing penetration of mobile phones even in the poorest and remotest areas of the globe. Many services can be now made available on a 24×7x365 basis at any place in the world covered by mobile networks, which today means almost everywhere. Through mobiles, for the first time ever, many public and private services have now reached poor households and communities. The demand for mobile applications is fast picking up developing countries. The multitude of highly innovative applications have been developed for mobile banking and payments, phone based information services for farmers and fishermen, locations based medical services and monitoring and data collection in the health sector, to name a few. However, the enormous potential of mobile devices for transforming delivery of public and financial services is still largely untapped.
This workshop aims to raise awareness of the transformational role mobile technologies can play in improving service delivery, efficiency and transparency by show-casing mobile-enabled innovations in a number of sectors and identifying emerging lessons learned and ways to scale up for achieving operational efficiencies and development impact.
The workshop features six sessions including 5 thematic sessions targeted to sector staff and over 20 distinguished experts on mobile innovations. See more details at: http://go.worldbank.org/7ZD6MGXWF0
Live webcast: www.worldbank.org/edevelopment/live
Published by Oleg Petrov June 21st, 2009
in eDevelopment.
As part of their response to the ongoing crisis, many countries are implementing economic stimulus packages. Public support to the build out of broadband infrastructure figures in many of these packages. What is the rationale for such support? How can it be implemented to support and enlarge private investment? What are the outcomes of such stimulus in terms of jobs and economic growth?
To discuss these issues, the Global Information and Communication Technologies (GICT) Department of the World Bank is organizing a Global Dialogue panel discussion on the role of broadband as both a short-term stimulus and a driver of long-term growth in the context. The discussion will take place on June 22, 2009, from 9 am to 11 am (EDT/Washington DC).
Public support can help rollout next generation ICT networks and provide short-term stimulus while laying the foundation for long-term growth. Broadband networks can support long-term innovation-led economic growth. Recent research by the World Bank finds that for every 10 percentage-point increase in the penetration of broadband services, developing countries can see an increase in economic growth of 1.3 percentage points.
Such broadband stimulus can help Eastern Europe catch up with the EU-15 countries in broadband penetration and realize such growth opportunities. One estimate suggests that two-thirds of broadband subscribers globally are in developed countries. Broadband subscription rates in the Euro area countries, for instance, are significantly higher than that in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
These investments should be within the context of a broader ICT sector development strategy. State investment should accompany market reforms or be framed within the context of a level competitive playing field. These investments should also “crowd in” and not “crowd out” the private sector. Put another way, state aid should not compromise the level competitive playing field for all service providers or serve as a way to increase the role of the state in service provision. This event will discuss the transparent and competitively neutral implementation mechanisms that Eastern Europe’s economies can consider as they design and execute such programs.
Event materials and details: http://go.worldbank.org/VOKZO5KNY0
Published by Oleg Petrov June 9th, 2009
in eDevelopment.
Governments spend considerable amounts on IT, with the aim to improve efficiency, transparency, and to deliver more interactive services to citizens and businesses. Cloud computing is a fundamentally new approach to IT, which may lead to significant cost savings. At a time of financial crisis and of major fiscal constraints, cloud computing may be key to contain government expenditures. This World Bank workshop discussed on June 16, 2009 the emergence of cloud computing and the advantages that it offers in terms of cost savings in particular. The workshop will also highlight various challenges that need to be addressed with a special focus on connectivity, business models, efficiency, reliability, integration, security, privacy and interoperability issues.
The key objective of this workshop is to demystify and clarify the concept of cloud computing for both World Bank staff and our country clients. There is a lot of confusion around this idea with over 20 definitions offered so far by various parties. The workshop will also clarify the potential role of the World Bank and other development organizations in helping developing countries to realize this opportunity.
Some questions to ponder about:
- Can developing countries leapfrog government transformation goals by using the cloud computing approach? Is it the right time for developing country governments to experiment with this approach?
- Hosting of applications/data across borders: under what circumstances will governments allow their applications to be hosted on an offshore technology platform?
- Data security: can personal information on citizens/businesses be adequately safeguarded in a cloud environment?
- How should governments and development agencies adjust their legal and procurement policies and procedures to enable this approach? How can this be accommodated within World Bank lending operations?
- What is the transition strategy for developing countries? Are private “government clouds” an interim solution which should be promoted?
- What is the appropriate role for the World Bank and other development organizations?
The workshop was attended by some 40 people in DC and about 70 in other 5 countries and about 70 were watching live webcast (numbers TBC).
Here’s the video recording
The unofficial summary (drafted by partners from Austria) can be found at:
Part 1: http://ict4d.at/2009/06/16/financial-crisis-and-cloud-computing-opening-session-global-overview
Part 2: http://ict4d.at/2009/06/16/financial-crisis-and-cloud-computing-country-and-industry-perspectives-closing-remarks
The slides and rich set of background materials are on event website at: http://go.worldbank.org/QGZ86BA9X0
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