The Second International ICT Conference on E-Applications in Develooing Countries, Sudan

The Second International ICT Conference on E-Applications in Develooing Countries

The Second International ICT Conference on E-Applications in Developing Countries: Directins and Challenges was held in Sudan capital Khartoum in November 27-29. The started by Opening General Session. Several Sudan high government officials including Vice President, Dr. Elhag Adam Yousif, Minister of Higher Education & Scientific Research, Minister of Communication and Information Technology and Minister of Human Resources Development had welcome address to participants.

Minister of Higher Education & Scientific Research noted that ministry is ready to start e-learning project and they will organize international conference on e-learning next month in order to get and share experience.
Minister of Communication and Information Technology noticed that today a lot of high qualified specialists in the area of ICT graduate from Sudan Universities. Sudan as the rest of the world will do their best to benefit from using of ICT technologies, to provide electronic government services to all citizens even to those who live in rural and remote areas. Moreover, according to minister, most of state universities and research institutes are interconnected with high speed Internet. In the near future this advantage will be provided to private universities also.
Vice President brought some statistics on ICT penetrition in Sudan. He said that there are more than 20 mln mobile phone users and more than 10 mln people in Sudan are using Internet. He olso mentioned about importance of e-government implementation for Sudan, as a lever for operational efficiency of governmental and platform of government services for remote regions. He also noteced that government and organizers will carefully analyze all recommendations and proposals of participants.

Conference was continued by Keynote Addresses of:

Minister of Communication and Information Technology of Sudan at center

Knowledge Society and Wisdom Governance Prof. Awad Hag Ali, Elneelian University
How to Build a Successful E-Government? Dr. Ahmed Elmohanadi, University of Qatar, Qatar
Challenges and Opportunities in Interoperating Information Systems, Prof. Bob Colombo, Australia
Integration of Cloud Computing into e-Applications for Developing Countries: Challenges and Future, Dr. Abdullahi Bin Gani, UM, Malysia

Behavioral Challenges for e-Government in Underdeveloped Countries, Prof. Izzeldin M. Osman , Sudan University of Science and Technology, Sudan
Towards Good Governance Through Implementation of University Management Information System, Prof. Dr. Abzetdin Adamov, Qafqaz University, Azerbaijan
International Trends and Development in Technologies Supporting Developing and Emerging Countries, (Finding Collected when Organizing the United Nation’s World Summit Award from 2003 Till Today), Mr. Christian Bauer, WSA Co-Founder, Austria
Developing Kenya’s National e-Learning Center: A Multi Stakeholder Approach, Mr. Gakiria Andrew , National E-Learning Center, Kenya

e-Government Services in Azerbaijan Current State and Perspectives

e-Government Services in Azerbaijan Current State and Perspectives

In November 04, 2011 round-table meeting devoted to “e-Government Services in Azerbaijan Current State and Perspectives” organized by Multimedia Center took place in International Press Center, Baku, Azerbaijan. Multimedia Center Director Osman Gunduz presented his view and concerns about this important subject. Participants discussed existing problems and barriers before e-government transition. As an outcome of the meeting organizers will prepare proposal to be delivered to government.
Azerbaijan Presidential decree on transition to the e-government services from May 23, 2011 strenthed on the importance of these services for government and public. According to this decree Ministry of Communication and Information Technologies was assigned as responsible party for drawing out policy and strategy of national e-government project. The participants of meeting noticed that despite of the fact that final document had to be prepared by Ministry within 3 months, still there is not any publicly accessible information related to this issue.
One of another possible way, widely implemented by other countries which accomplished successful e-government projects, consist in forming over governmental Working Group consist of members/specialists from all ministries and agencies. They have to work together to prepare recommendations (e-Government Roadmap or Strategy), to indicate redundancy and specify the list of potential e-services according to their value for citizens, improvement of government efficiency and possibility of short term deployment. Software design experts and system architects should develop e-Government Architecture, which consist of Standard Technology Model, Data Architecture and Standards.

Some important issues have to be taken into account in e-Government project:

Main Goals of e-Government Project:

• Simplify the interaction of citizens with government and access to governmental services
• Increase government effectiveness
• Increase government responsiveness to citizens and transparency

Key Objectives of e-Government Project:

• Eliminate layers of government citizens interacting with
• Make possible to access to information and services for citizens, business and government anytime, anywhere
• Simplify business processes, reduce cost and eliminating redundancy
• Streamline government functioning

Key Barriers of e-Government Project:

• Uncertainty in Government Organizational Architecture
• Lack of process-oriented approach (If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing – Edwards Deming)
• Automation of inefficiency (The first rule of any technology is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency – Bill Gates)
• Islands of automation – when ministries or agencies order systems to solve particular problems without concern of the e-services
• Resistance to change (To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often – Winston Churchill)
• Insufficient skills, knowledge and experience
• Insufficient interoperability between ministries and agencies
• Security concern