This month APCICT is co-organizing three national training workshops in Indonesia, Samoa and Timor-Leste as part of the Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders Programme. Seven ASEAN university scholars have also joined APCICT as part of the Future ICT Leaders Programme.
ASEAN Scholars Join APCICT’s Work Programme (29 June-21 August)
Seven of 20 undergraduate students have been awarded a place in APCICT’s short-term work programme from 29 June to 21 August. Under the guidance of professional staff, students from Cambodia, Lao PDR, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam will be actively involved in APCICT’s training and research activities.
This is part of a collaboration between the United Nations Asian and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology for Development (APCICT), ASEAN University Network, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea and Daejeon University in the Future ICT Leaders Programme to enhance the information and communication technology (ICT) capacity of youths. The programme aims to introduce social and economic development issues to Computer Science students and explore ways in which ICTs can be used to address the needs of poor and marginalized communities in the areas of education, environment, governance and health, among other development sectors.
This is the second year of the Future ICT Leaders Programme where students have been granted exchange scholarships to study ICT for socio-economic development at Daejeon University for an academic year. APCICT provides advisory services on the curriculum design of this programme and offers students the opportunity to be involved in UN’s work through APCICT, following a competitive recruitment exercise.
Third National Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders in Indonesia Builds Bridges to Close the Digital Divide (30 June-3 July)
As part of the “Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders” Programme, the third training workshop will be held in Solo City, Indonesia on 30 June - 3 July 2009. The workshop is co-organized by APCICT, the Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) and the University of Indonesia. Forty heads of ICT agencies/department of provincial and city governments will participate in the workshop. MCIT has in fact increased the available slots for this workshop due to demands from participants of previous workshops to come back for the training.
For this third workshop, government officials will be trained on modules 6 to 8 of the comprehensive Academy curriculum that focus on Network and Information Security and Privacy, ICT Project Management, and Options for Funding ICT for Development. The first two workshops held in March and April imparted training on the earlier modules that look at linkages between ICT and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), ICT for development policymaking, e-government, ICT trends and Internet governance. All the modules have been translated into Bahasa Indonesia and the workshops are conducted in the national language to eliminate the language barrier.
Pacific Explores the Use of ICT for Effective Disaster Management (6-9 July)
APCICT is co-organizing the “Using ICT for Effective Disaster Management Pacific Forum 2009” on 7-9 July in Apia, Samoa with the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation, Commonwealth Secretariat, International Telecommunication Union, Pacific Islands Telecommunications Association and Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC). This is the sixth in the series of “Using ICT for Effective Disaster Management” Fora that includes sessions on knowledge sharing and policy/regulation development focused on all phases of the disaster management cycle from response to preparedness and mitigation in the Pacific Islands. Previous events in this series have taken place in Sri Lanka, Jamaica, Fiji, Tanzania and Mauritius since 2000.
In one of the interactive sessions, APCICT will showcase its flagship programme, the Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders to delegates of the Forum that include ICT as well as disaster risk managers and policymakers. SOPAC, a partner of APCICT in rolling out the Academy Programme in the Pacific, will conduct a needs assessment for a new Academy module on ICT for Disaster Risk Reduction to incorporate a Pacific voice. The Academy currently has an eight-module curriculum, with two additional modules in the pipeline on disaster risk reduction and climate change. The results of the training needs assessment will be presented at a conference in August on “Building Local Resilience to Disasters: Challenges and Opportunities,” co-organized by APCICT, the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Secretariat and Incheon Metropolitan City.
As a post-event to the Pacific Forum, APCICT together with Samoa’s Ministry of Communications and SOPAC will conduct a one-day Academy training workshop on 10 July for policymakers and heads of department of various government ministries of Samoa, as well as delegates of the Forum. The training will cover modules 1 and 2 of the Academy on the linkages between ICT and the MDGs, and on ICT for development policy, process and governance, respectively. In addition, there will be presentations on MDG progress and ICT policy of Samoa.
Launch of APCICT’s Flagship Academy Programme in Timor-Leste (7-10 July)
The first in a series of national Academy workshops for high-level government officials in Timor-Leste will take place in Dili on 7-10 July 2009. APCICT in partnership with the Directorate National for ICT, Ministry of Infrastructure and the Academy team at the University of Indonesia is organizing this workshop. Fifty participants will be trained on modules 1 and 2 of the Academy curriculum.
APCICT facilitated this South-South cooperation between Indonesia and Timor-Leste. A qualified resource person from the University of Indonesia who has undergone APCICT’s training of trainers course together with another APCICT alumni from Timor-Leste will conduct this first workshop using the Bahasa Indonesia version of the Academy. This event will be used to build a pool of Academy resource persons in Timor-Leste.
National Academy roll-out in over a dozen other countries is underway. For more information, please visit http://www.unapcict.org/academy.
