The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) will be presenting several topics during this year’s Information and Communications Technology Cluster Meeting (ICT-CM) of the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA).
According to a recent press release, the cluster meeting is set to focus on ICT projects identified in the BIMP-EAGA Vision 2025.
The Cluster has four identified strategic priorities or pillars. These are:
- Enhanced Connectivity
- Food Basket Strategy
- Tourism Development
- Environment
With these in mind, the Cluster will be discussing matters that include:
- Developing hard and soft ICT infrastructure
- Promotion of e-commerce at the subregional level
- Human resource development in ICT
- Development of ICT entrepreneurship and ICT products and services.
The Information and Communications Technology Cluster Meeting
For its part, the Department is set to present its proposal project called the Cross Border Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR) System Integration to the Cluster.
This system is aimed at strengthening collaboration in addressing disasters and public safety and relief in the region.
Aside from the Philippines’ DICT, the ICT-CM will be attended by the Department’s counterparts in the participating countries.
These are the Brunei Darussalam’s Ministry of Transport and Infocommunications, Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, and the Malaysian Communication & Multimedia Commission.
These four organisations, together with key private partners, will complete this year’s meeting.
What is the BIMP-EAGA?
The BIMP-EAGA is a sub-regional economic cooperation aimed at spurring economic development in lagging sub-economies of the four member countries.
It covers the underdeveloped and geographically remote areas in the four member countries.
These areas include the entire sultanate of Brunei Darussalam; nine provinces in Kalimantan, Sulawesi, the island chain of Maluku, and Papua in Indonesia; the federal states of Sabah and Sarawak, and the federal territory of Labuan in Malaysia; and 26 provinces of Mindanao 26 provinces and the province of Palawan in the Philippines.
The BIMP-EAGA economic cooperation focuses on four strategic pillars with the end goal of narrowing the development gaps among its member states.
The National Information and Communications Technology Summit
Meanwhile, the National Information and Communications Technology (NICT) Summit 2019 is reportedly set to discuss the government’s recent efforts in levelling up the country’s digital transformation.
With the theme, “Accelerating Government’s Digital Transformation”, the event is considered to be the biggest gather of Philippine government movers in the field of ICT.
Around 500 government executives, ICT managers and practitioners, local government officials, and academe members are expected to participate.
Other topics to be tackled during the event include local challenges of government data integrity and reliability for mobile services involving payments, civil registries, education, elections, passports, and other frontline services.
The Summit will serve as the culminating event of the National ICT Month celebration. It is a two-day event spearheaded by the Department.
Plenary sessions will feature topics such as data-driven social services and emerging technologies while parallel tracks will engage conversations on digitisation in government, and local government unit (LGU) digital transformation, among others with industry partners.