Chair, UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development (UN GAID)
MENA ICT CONFERENCE
26-28 January, 2010
Your Excellency, our Patron, Sheikh Ahmed bin Atiyatallah Al Khalifa,
Minister of Cabinet Affairs
Excellencies, honoured guests, ladies and gentlemen,
It gives me great pleasure to join you today to speak to you on behalf of the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID). My frame of reference is the development opportunities and the transforming impact ICT infrastructure and applications can have in the Arab region, and other developing countries.
It is indeed deeply gratifying for me to see this conference hosted by the Kingdom of Bahrain, a country which I had the honour to welcome this year, represented by Bahrain E-Government Authority, as a member of our Strategy Council of the Global Alliance.
Bahrain has achieved the great distinction of beating all the key IT indexes. It has double the world average in the e-Development Index and the Web Measurement Index more than double the world average of the Infrastructure Index and above the average of the Human Development Index, and overall it ranks thirteenth among the 184 countries. Bahrain makes us feel proud to be from the Arab Region. I wish to congratulate the Government of Bahrain on its great success.
Let me begin with a question.
Which nation in the world has the most advanced digital health care system? Any guesses? According to a recent NY Times article, the answer is Denmark. Denmark and its Scandinavian neighbours are far ahead of other advanced Western and Asian nations in allowing patients to be virtually monitored and cared for by health care professionals, and in the use of electronic medical records. In Denmark even the ambulances have access to the patient’s medical records as they’re driven to the hospital.
Precisely because of previous lapses in prior telecom infrastructure, many Arab and other developing countries have surged ahead in adoption of wireless services. Several Arab nations such as Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan have rolled out quality broadband solutions at affordable costs, and other nations in the region are seeking to follow their lead, recognizing that high quality telecommunication infrastructure is critical to attracting and supporting business and investment. It is also equally important to evolving ICT based systems of education. Globally, online education has passed the beta stage and has entered the mainstream, while the use of the internet as an educational tool has become as essential as paper, pencil and the blackboard.
In the Arab world the potential for broadband wireless to help us leapfrog over current gaps between the developed and developing world presents a golden opportunity. The digital divide that originated with widespread connectivity to the internet in the West during the 90’s, has metamorphosed again into a digital broadband divide. But mobile broadband is poised to bridge that gap and Arab countries are well on the way to providing consumers with a variety of services; broadband wireless use in the Arab world is set to expand by 50% annually over the present decade, but ideally that growth rate should be even higher because there is a low base point and strong business and social need for higher penetration rates.
Your Excellency, Distinguished Colleagues
It is expected that video on the internet through broadband is the future. Currently one third of internet traffic is online videos watch. Broadband is the foundation for the coming convergence of networks towards a single IP-based mode able to provide any kind of service (internet, voice, video … etc.)
In over 20 years experience at the international level and in the Arab Region, including the UN Information and Communication Technologies ICT Taskforce as Co-chair, the UN Global Compact as Vice-chair to its Chair Mr. Kofi Anan, and as the Chairman of GAID, I have worked to promote and catalyze the role of ICTs in the socioeconomic development of the Arab region, and witnessed that technology has moved forward far more than I or others might have guessed.
We have also learned that the fruits of technology grow freely if allowed the proper environment and conditions.
Private sector involvement and cultivation of public-private partnerships have proved to be particularly important in the technology arena, and at the United Nations we have come to view it as critically important for governments, the private sector and civil society to come together to collaborate to solve the social and business problems we face together, in a spirit of cooperation and partnership. Among many such joint public/public partnerships, is the UNESCO/TAGorg partnership, to develop a web based, dynamic, interactive continuously updated ICT indicators report for each Arab country.
Today, we are at the verge of new breakthroughs in the Internet Revolution. The trends toward convergence of mobile platforms, cloud computing, Web 2.0 and 3.0, the forthcoming IPv6 artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and bioinformatics are creating a new business and social environment that was not foreseen even two or three years ago. Hundreds of thousands of new applications are coming on-line, changing the way health, education, government and business services are being delivered, including Apple’s major new product, expected to be launched tomorrow (27/1/2010) and rumoured to be called iSlate, or iTablet. A well kept secret.
There’s a lot of talk about the upcoming Apple tablet, and in a recent study, researchers discovered that 39 percent of potential customers want solar power support in their device to combat Apple’s occasional problems with poor battery life.. And it wouldn’t be a bad idea if solar tech came to iPods and iPhones as well, Apple’s entire product line – giving the company a leg up in the arena of green energy.
Today, I call on IJMA3 for the establishment of an “Arab ICT Advancement Forum” that can act as an Arab Hub: A Network and a Partnership that can provide a unique platform for all key stakeholders, governments, the private sector, academia and civil society to assess trends, collaborate, define the parameters of joint actions and chart our collective way forward.
I always remind my self of the old wisdom that the best way to predict the future is to shape it.
Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen, On February 8th, I am scheduled to meet the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to review the many productive programs GAID is overseeing, including a matrix of “ICT 4 MDG” providing guidance on ICT as enabler for the MDG achievement, and on barriers to ICT access, such that we may create active plans which may be used by individual countries. Another example is a proposal establishing a task force on ICT for the protection of life and property. This should also provides potential for ICT innovation.
Your Excellency, our distinguished Patron, help us make this event a milestone toward a harmonized regional ICT development by hosting in Bahrain the Secretariat of the “Arab ICT Advancement Forum”.
Thank you.