We've just begun the second day of the GCC e-government conference. The
first speaker of the day, a representative from Cisco's regional office,
is now presenting.
I've been pleasantly surprised by the number of speakers who have
addressed the digital divide in their presentations. About 75% of the
dozen speakers so far have addressed the issue in one form or another.
James Jarrett of Intel discussed government-assisted access programs
around the world, from Brazil's PC Conectado program to a new initiative
in Saudi Arabia to expand at-home computer access over the next five years.
I was particularly interested in Rehab Lootah's presentation about
Dubai's e-government strategy. She talked about a new eCitizen
certification initiative. Working with the ICT training company New
Horizons, Dubai is offering a reduced-cost ICT training course for local
residents. The full course includes two hours of basic PC training, two
hours of Internet fundamentals, another two hours of email fundamentals,
then 10 hours of online services training, focusing specifically on
e-government. The 10-hour section of the course shows how to use Dubai's
e-gov portals for registering new vehicles, renewing health cards,
getting entry permits for friends and family, bill payments and other
services. Graduates of the course are given access to a smart card that
allows them to get discounts for various goods and services across the
city. They've even started publishing a local e-gov journal for the
general public entitled "e4all" -- a name that resonated quite well with
me considering my own work on e-government for all, which I'll be
talking about at the conference later today.
Sad news to report, though: the Kuwaiti gentleman who had a heart attack
during the morning conference session yesterday passed away en-route to
the hospital, we discovered last night. People at the event clearly seem
rather introspective because of this; our hearts and prayers are
certainly with his family.... -andy
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Andy Carvin
Program Director
EDC Center for Media & Community
acarvin @ edc . org
http://www.digitaldivide.net
http://www.tsunami-info.org
Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com
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