The conference—sponsored by Dubai Courts, King Saud University, Emirates Identity Authority, Rolta, Awqaf, Thomson Reuters, Digital Flow Information Technologies, Sejel, Naseej, Dar Alataa Company International, d.erp, and Al Riyadh Newspaper— initiates a crucial step towards the development of the 4th generation of the eGovernment and eServices and evaluates the eMaturity of GCC as the best information and eServices society in a technically competitive world.
Ali Al Kamali, Managing Director of Datamatix presented a brief welcome message to the delegates and enlightened the global audience with the vision of the 19th GCC eGovernment and eServices conference.
He extended his special thanks to the Dubai Courts and the Emirates identity Authority for their thorough support for the conference in all these years and the tremendous efforts that they have contributed towards the eGovernment development.
“In line with the aspirations to shoulder a shared responsibility to develop the next generation of eGovernment services in the region, to promote, appreciate, and develop a culture of excellence in all the e-government sectors for the effective application of modern technologies and to raise the state apparatus efficiency by providing automated information systems to its citizens, we have gathered here in celebration of yet another successful year of the GCC eGovernment and eServices Conference. Since the past 2 decades, the eGov conference and Middle East eGov Awards have been continuously striving to recognize various efforts of the government and business organizations in the region by bringing them to a common platform and highlighting their invaluable contributions towards eGovernment services that can serve as role models to the region. This year, once again we move forward aspiring to create new role models, establish innovative ideas, and explore the successful eGov case studies in the region that will positively upraise the standards of eGov in the region.”
The conference opening patron message was given by Dr. Ahmed Saeed Salem Bin Hezeem, Director General Dubai Courts in which he stressed on the significance of the conference and said that the unique and magnanimous gathering of participants in this conference is evidently the proof of information technology being the engine of growth in the GCC countries and the strides that the region is taking towards marking its name of the global technological forefront. He also emphasized on the IT ventures of the Dubai courts that has initiated various eServices for the citizens with its dedicated and highly qualified team to keep pace with the world in an era of information technology.
Dr. Ali Al Kouri, Director General, Emirates Identity Authority presented the Conference Keynote: eGovernment: Key Trends and Challenges on GCC 2013 e-Maturity – Measuring the Success and Challenges. He emphasized on the journey of GCC’s eMaturity from theory to practice and discussed the role that technological learning and information and communication technologies (ICT) play in the Knowledge Economy. He said that the supreme leaderships of the Emirates are leaving no efforts in contributing towards the technical and competitive success of the region. He stressed on the efforts and achievements of the Emirates Identity Authority in glorifying the emirates’ technical competitiveness.
He also said that the authority will concentrate in the coming phase of its march to reinforce its method in excellence and to upgrade its services and update its competitive status, under its quest to be the best institutional system among all the government institutions in the country.
He elaborated in detail the various crucial projects of the Emirates Identity Authority that have been working towards overcoming all the obstacles in the existing systems and the efforts that the organization is exerting towards providing an unparalleled security structure to the Gulf Cooperation Council. He further said all the sectors and leaders in the UAE have to join hands and progress integrated towards achieving the preset goals of identity and security in the GCC and for improving the quality of services offered to the citizens in the region.
The session was followed by a panel discussion on GCC 2013 e-Maturity – Measuring the Success and Challenges, chaired by Dr. Ali Al Khouri, Director General, Emirates Identity Authority; Salem Khamis Al Shair Al Suwaidi, Deputy Director-General of the TRA’s Information and eGovernment Sector; Ali Bin Saleh Al-Soma, Advisor to The Minister of Communications and IT, Director General of e-Government Program, KSA and Yaqoob Dur Mohammed Al Bulushi, Director General of Infrastructure, Information Technology Authority, Oman. Eng. Ali Bin Saleh Al-Soma initiated the discussion by asserting that the large gathering of speakers, experts, and supreme leaders in this conference clearly portrays the desired goals and objectives will be achieved.
He also said that the continuous success of the conference since the past 19 years has integrated all the efforts of the GCC in coming together to achieve the strategic objectives of the region. The panel discussed the eMaturity profiles of each GCC member countries and explored the increasing number of governments in the GCC that have endeavored to meet the needs of the citizens by providing more eServices and by creating a level of online dialogue that was not in place a few years ago.
Yaqoob Dur Mohammed Al Bulushi stressed on the difficult phases in the technical infrastructure of the GCC and asserted that information security id the key link to strengthening the coordination between the government organizations. He also elaborated on the 700 government links in the Sultanate of Oman that are integrating efforts to reach the highest level of transparency and efficient performance in the giving a balanced result and facilitate the achievements of objectives. Salem Khamis Al Shair Al Suwaidi, discussed the eGovernment infrastructure of the UAE and emphasized that the next 5 years would be a very technically challenging and transitional phase for the Emirate
It was followed by the United Nations Development Program Message Paolo Lembo, United Nations Resident Coordinator in UAE, Qatar and Oman, UNDP – United Nations Development Programme. He said that eGovernment has become an integral opportunity for the public sector to connect with citizens and businesses 24 hours a day as well as generate necessary revenue to fund future projects. In the government sector ongoing push to improve government excellence and to be more transparent, accessible, and responsive to citizens’ and businesses’ needs, expanding and advancing e-government is essential. He asserted that the focus of this conference is to promote creativity and innovation, ensuring the continuous development of government services. He added that GCC is a perfectly competitive region that has integrated excellence into all its sectors and working patters and has truly come out as a thriving and sustaining nation in terms of technology. He conclude his message by saying that GCC, in the coming future, will touch greater heights with its integrated international partnerships to come with the best practical approaches to be integrated to its systems to enhance the richness of this glorious region.
The sessions after the coffee break began with the successful eGovernment Case study by Abdullah Rasheed, Director of Information Systems Projects, Emirates Transport. His case study focused on the RFID tracking card that has established a new benchmark in the school transportation and providing utmost safety and security features for the students with accurate embarking and disembarking reports. He elaborated on how IT can help in bringing transitional changes in the mode of transport and in making it convenient for students to be safe and secure. He said that for them safety and security is and will be the first and foremost priority. He also emphasized on their collaboration with various public sectors and the various challenges that they faced in integrating IT.
He talked about the ‘Smart Card that would be available to each and every student embarking and disembarking the bus. He also said that the system will be a fool-proof technical system that would keep track of the driver, route, and all the other matters in making it a very safe and secure system for the students. He also presented to the audience the parents web portal, which the parents can access for complete information of the child. He also talked about another initiative that will facilitate the easy collection of data of students coming from different geographical locations. He concluded his presentation by saying that they aspire to secure the future by securing the transportation of the future generations.
A delegate from EID thanked Rasheed for the enlightening presentation and said that EID looks forward to collaborate with Emirates transport for this RIFD cards initiative. Rasheed also answered the query of a South African delegate regarding the challenges faced in implementing the projects and the system adopted by them in reaching the parents and students coming from rural and remote areas.
Day 1 concluded with the presentation of a panel discussion on Top Challenges for Next Generation GCC e-Government, chaired by Ashok Kumar Hota Senior Technical Director (Scientist-F) National Informatics Centre. Govt. of India; Christian Hochhuth, Senior Conceptual Designer, Services for the eSociety and Dr. Usman Zafar, Country Manager MENA, International Services for the e-Society. The panel focused on the Big data analytics and its dynamic features in the age of eGovernment, mPayements and ePayements gateways and its impact on the current consumer market, the global eGovernment competitiveness criteria and measurement.
Hota briefed on the various strategies that can deliver service excellence to the citizens at large and looked into the various parameters that are associated with the provision of these services. He informed the audience regarding the various surveys and data gathering work that was one in order to categorize the data and its services that has to be reached out to a million people in the nation. He dwelled into the various technicalities of the data gathering strategy and the various methodologies it uses to suit the needs of the nation’s technical requirements.
Usman Zafar discussed the big challenges that organizations in the GCC are facing in regards to the old legacy systems and where we stand in terms of as the ‘4th Generation eGovernment region’’. He also talked about the state of the art implementations that he has gathered from the presentations during the conference and discussed the various working patterns of the ministries, government, and other organizations and their need to shift from the legacy systems and move towards the next generation eGovernment.
He said that there is a social shift in the region’s way of thinking that has driven the need to implement and open and 2 way communications system and emphasized on the difference between the various generation of eGovernment and the parameters by which each generation is marked.
Kamali raised a very important point regarding the gateway for achieving the 1 trillion GDP nation and the crucial benchmarks that we need to create and follow in order to realize that global vision.
Christian Hochhuth discussed about his perspective on the 4th Generation of the eGovernment and spoke about the various etransaction methods that the European nations have adopted in providing responsive services to the citizens. He also discussed the top 3 challenges faced by Germany in fulfilling the eGovernment demands especially in attracting and coaxing people to use the online and eServices.
In the Q&A session participants discussed and raised questions regarding the various challenges in Big Data security, data corruption, and other strong blocks that binds the trusts of the user in using online services. Discussions also took place regarding the introduction of various new systems that have not attained their pre-determined goals. Zafar elaborated on the 2020 and 2030 strategies that have created new models of service systems with strong data gathering and discussed the failures in documentation.
Participants also discussed about the problems that the old generation will face in coping up with the new systems and the steps that would be taken to fulfill the gap and a future world that would go non-portal with mobile taking the dominant position.
The first day of the conference, elaborately explored various innovative areas and scopes for developing the next generation government service delivery and put forward various strategic solutions for overcoming the government legacy system challenges. The speakers and panelists drove attention of the participants towards various key areas of the region’s technical forefront and put forth significant ideas that can preserve and propagate government organizations data and information sharing.