Notes from Global Forum on Building the Inclusive Internet Economy: Developing Countries Perspectives

Finally, this is the formal one about what I get from the Global Forum on Building the Inclusive Internet Economy: Developing Countries Perspectives which I joined on June 16, 2008. This forum was initiated by United Nations Asian and Pacific Training Center for Information and Communication Technoloy Development (UN APCICT) as a part of bigger forum, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Ministerial Meeting on the Future of Internet Economy. It took place in Conference Room 402, COEX, Incheon Metropolitan City, Seoul, South Korea.

This forum is divided into four parts, but unfortunately since we could not go back too late to the University, which is located in Daejeon (about 150 kilometres from Seoul), we could only join the first three parts. And here is my resume about it.

First part

The first one is introduction and context of the forum from the Director of UN APCICT, Ms. Hyeun-Suk Rhee. She hoped that this forum can contribute into the OECD Ministerial Meeting by providing perspectives from many developing countries and organizations about how to strenghten Internet Economy by make it inclusive, considering the three factors (convergence, confidence, and creativity). She is an active woman who played big role in the whole parts of the forum.

The second introduction is welcome remarks from the Chairman of Korea Communications Commission, Mr. Byeong Gi Lee. He also represented the government of Korea, hoping that we all enjoy the forum, and in general, enjoy also living in Korea. He had a big hope that this forum could lead us, including Korea and many developing countries to improve their economics conditions using internet as one of the tools.

After those two introductions, finally the theme presentation was given. The keynote speaker was Minister from Ministry of Communication and Information Technology of Republic of Indonesia (my own country! ), Mr. Mohammad Nuh. He was presenting about Today and Tomorrow’s Internet Economy: Developing Country Perspective. He firstly talked about how the internet has given us many advantages compared with the normal one in the economic field, such as less cost needed, more market open, and accept creativity. Then, he explained about the conditions of Indonesia which is so complicated that people say that “If you can solve problems Indonesia faces now, then you will have a great chance to solve problems of our world”. Finally, we showed one way how internet can help to decrease the problem by providing high-availability networks covering all parts of Indonesia (called Palapa Ring project – which is still in progress) so that there are greater chances from every parts of Indonesia to communicate each other. He hoped that this forum can provide more solutions and ideas in order to improve our conditions.

This part is closed by the photo session which includes all the speakers (both which had already spoken and had not yet) and some audiences from different countries and organizations (too bad that we were not included in the photo T_T). So lucky that I – along the exchange students from Indonesia – got the opportunity to take a picture with the minister, Mr. Nuh.

Second part

This is the main discussion in this forum. This part takes form in panel discussions with moderator Mr. Madanmohan Rao, Research Advisor from Asian Media Information and Communication Centre. The panelists there represent developing countries and industries from Asia, Africa, Middle East and the Pacific, which are :

1. Ms. Anriette Esterhuysen, Executive Director of Association for Progressive Communications (South Africa)
2. Mr. John Buddon, Economic Infrastructure Advisor of Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (Pacific)
3. Mr. Emmanuel C. Lallana, Chief Executive of Ideacorp (Philippines)
4. Mr. Eisa Abdel Galil, Senior Economist from Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry (United Arab Emirates)
5. Mr. Kofi Brako Kwarko, Director of Operation of Advanced Information Technology Institute (Ghana)

Below are my complete resume about the content of the panel discussions. Firstly, “What are important things should be considered when dealing with internet economy (find the complete definition about this term here)“.

Ms. Emmanuel (EM) : Firstly, we should build infrastructure so that it will provide us safety transactions. This is the fundamental of ecomony. Secondly, providing local content. Nowadays, hoax, spam, and other negative informations spread so fast that we cannot control it. Therefore, one thing we can do is counter them with positive ones. We must make policies according to that, everyone know that, but why up until now, we have not got policy, local content, ect? In this case, we must consider internet as part of bigger economic structures. For example, why convergence could not happen? Because everyone wants to use the plafrom they create so that they will get the benefit. Therefore, people is our main concern! If you have money, use it for human capital development (develop ICT skills and other needed for 21st century), not the others.
Ms. Anriette (A) : Internet is special case for Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) since internet and economy are related as integral parts. However, internet is not the answer by its own. Poverty, for example, could not be solved by only internet. We should think what other things we could do better with internet, not what internet can do. Collaboration and interaction between internet and the other parts should be done more interactively. Local context and local policies should be customized so that it becomes simpler and implementable.
Mr. Kofi (K) : Internet infrastructure nowadays is not used well since we do not have enough ideas. Thus, creating contents become important. We do what we can do best, look ad our strength, and innovative enough to use and get benefit from them. Thus the main thing here is idea. Internet provides us servide, now how can we use it. Public goods, for example, is the idea resulting from combination of market value and reality which can bring many benefits to their creator. We can say that, in order to make bridge between developed and developing countries, we should bring contents online. One way in order to do this is implement IT education to lower age (in Ghana, for example, there is program to give one laptop for one student).
Mr. John (J) : This problem can only be settled by the concern of whole parties so that convergence of the internet can be achieved. This is to guarantee that contents which in the end can lead people can be implemented
Mr. Eisa (EI) : Internet economy is application of trade economy with indicators such as regulations (how it is safe and can prevent threat), competitions (how people can choice), and products (what it offers). In this case, since there are more people connect to network nowadays, Internet has more value for better future. That is why, we need specific policies for each kind of transactions it provides.

“How to ensure that convergence, confidence, and creativity will be achieved when conducting internet economy.”

EM : Convergence is one example of the usage of technology application. Technology sometimes develop to the level that we are not ready to handle. VoIP, for example, has been banned in several countries do to the loss it brought to many telecommunication providers. In this case, convergence can be achieved by making sure that the interoperability of technology application between several different networks can be made. Therefore, whatever kind of technology used, people using existing technology can still cooperate with.
A : Convergence is real challenge as well as opportunity. Mr. Emmanuel talked about how powerful VoIP is. Nevertheless, In South Africa, for example, mobile is so powerful that VoIP cannot be recognized. This shows that the advance of certain technology varies depending on so many different aspects. This is why infrastructure sharing becomes important. What kind of infrastructure used by the mobile technology in South Korea, and how it differs with the one VoIP used, and so on. This will strengthen the individual infrastrucutes themselvels as well as the combination of them.
J : Policies for ensuring convergence and confidence cannot stand alone. Every single user connected to internet should aware that threats are enormous out there beside the chances internet provides. Wisdom and knowledge therefore are needed to overcome that.
K : Advance of technology should be allowed, not prohibited. Government and rules are only to ensure that they develop to the right path. The same as car goes on – we just make sure that it sticks on the road.
EI : Regulation to strict the advance of technology is not the smart way. Just leave to the market – it knows what best and what the most efficient products or services are.

“How can innovation and creativity to provide strong internet economy be unleashed from developing countries.”

K : Once again, we should emphasize on the content. Once you have an idea, use platform provided by the internet, spread it, and then you will get value from it. This is what we called internet usage for creating and spreading ideas.
EM : IT is not the only part. People has their own competencies. We can unleash their potentials by making sure that everyone has basic skills needed in their fields – in this case, ICT is used to strengthen those skills and make them be useful for wider purpose.
A : Overcome the culture of games. It is acceptable to use creativity and innovation for making and playing games over internet, but not that much. If you want to play using internet, do it earlier when you are still kid. Now it is time for you to do the university project and so on.
J : Chance to provide content and goods is one thing, but improvement of the skills in order to provide those is also important to make sure that the content and goods presented are not nothing – have values in them.

“How to increase confidence in using internet economy – that is, make internet reliable as tools for conducting economy.” In addition, this is related to the question I asked in that forum, which was stated in one of my post earlier, “I am very interested about what Mr. Kofi Said about the importance of giving content – everytime you have an idea, spread it over the facilities provided by internet, and you will get values from it. However, the problem is, just as Mrs. Anriette said, sometimes the context of the content is not general, and thus we need local content among each group or country. In this case, perhaps I can share content about how to start and develop a good company in some fields, but when you try to use my content, you will get field. Furthermore, there are some bad people which intentionally spread bad or wrong information – which often called negative content. Therefore, spreading content can end with misleading. In this case, how can we, as non government parties, you from NGOs, and we students, can minimize the impact of this phenomenon? And do the government has anything to do with it? What roles can they play? Thank you very much.“.

K : When building internet based economy system, we should make sure what can we do with the data provided there, and who should be in charge of it. In this case, we can minimize the probability of the useless contents which now occupies our time quite much (50% of our time using the internet is used to delete information we do not need). Nevertheless, keep in mind that we must still believe in what we are doing. If you are sure that your content will be useful, then spread it.
A : Empowering human resources is the key. Rather than being more strict – use more firewalls, ban more websites, block more communications, and so on, human empowerment, when conducted well, can give more results with the minimized costs. By using human empowerment, we can make sure five principles will be achieved, capacity (ability of the citizens to take-and-give positive contents and throw away negative ones), exposure (each skills can be used wider effectively and efficiently), localization (global contents are assimilated or adapted so that each part of this global world can get the impacts), long term (make sure that our values are dedicated for long life), and getting back (make sure that people who add the value is the one and the only one who will get the value back).
J : Potentialization of each persons connected to the internet should be guaranteed. Then the motivation to share will be much more that motivation to get. This is what Google does (share first, get back later – no need to think about it), and we can see that Google becomes one of the most successful companies in ICT.
EI : We should make sure that each platforms used in every transactions and other economic activities are secure. It can be achieved technically (using many security techniques) and socially (empowerment as stated by Ms. Anriette).
EM : Confidence is one of the enormous challenges provided by ICT. This shows that ICT is a real thing. Furthermore, the challenges are hard, but worthed and fun.

Third part

This is the part in which UN APCICT shows us what they are doing. After congratulatory remarks from Mr. Lee Chang Koo, Deputy Mayor of Incheon Metropolitan City and Mr. Soomann Choi, President of Korea Radio Promotion Agency, Mr. James George Chacko from UN APCICT explains about achivements and activities of UN APCICT, such as APCICT Academy for ICT Essentials for Government Leaders, APCICT Virtual Academy, and e-Collaborative Hub on ICT for Development.

Since that day was also UN APCICT’s second birthday (founded on June 16, 2006), we also celebrated there by cutting a very big cake and view some video presentations about that organizations. I think that in its early age, UN APCICT has shown great achievements and is still conducting to continue to reach their vision – training, research, and advisory for ICT fields in Asia Pacific countries.

Well done, UN APCICT!