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E-government is the ‘in’ thing and a growing number of public services can now be delivered online. A major challenge faced, however, is how to get citizens more involved in public life and encourage greater interaction between the public sector and the man in the street.

The formation of a new umbrella organization to promote interoperability between existing identity management schemes was announced April 20 by a number of groups working in that industry space.

This paper focuses on a pilot study concerned with exploring the nature and role of socio-technical and discursive factors which may be implicated in the ‘shaping’ of the e-Citizen around the introduction of ‘customer relationship management’ (CRM) systems at a local government level. The research design draws on ‘social shaping of technology’ approaches and emphasises the significance of discursive events in these shaping processes.

The Digital Government Society of North America is making available to members and non-members the version 5.0 (May 2009) of the E-Government Master Library in EndNote TM (Version X2) XML format or a Package Version in ZIP format. An alphabetically sorted (by first author names) PDF printout of all references is also included in the downloadable ZIP file.

Fujitsu, has introduced its new global storage portfolio under the ETERNUS brand name, which it said provides customers with a comprehensive range of storage arrays and data protection solutions for every type of business. The company said this underlines its new worldwide focus and is aimed at providing its growing customer base with class-leading versatile, high-availability ETERNUS storage systems.

The eParticipation Call for Proposals (ICT PSP Call 3 bis) has been launched on 5 June 2009. It will remain open until 23 September 2009, at 17:00 CET. The call is based on the amended Work Programme 2009 of the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP).

The world of open-source development could be divided, if the European Commission succeeds in passing a law extending consumer protection rules to software, according to experts. The Commission proposes that software companies be held liable in the European Union for the security and efficacy of their products.

Many large IT operations are extensively using open-source technology -- in operating systems, applications, development tools and databases. So why not in routers, too?

Egyptian research could get a higher profile with the creation of a digital library, part of a range of measures aiming to enhance the availability of scientific information.

Slovakia has introduced 'Electronic Parliament', which will provide the facility to submit all bills electronically and reduce use of paper in the National Council.

Kigali — The Minister of Science and Technology in the President's office, Prof. Romain Murenzi, has revealed that his ministry will soon present a draft ICT bill in parliament that will establish a law to govern science and technology.

STAKEHOLDERS in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector have gathered to find ICT-based solutions to the problems created by the global economic crisis. The Telecom Namibia ICT Summit 2009 is "Telecom's most innovative platform for knowledge sharing and partnership building among Namibian industry players as well as with their foreign partners," according to Telecom Namibia MD, Frans Ndoroma. He also noted that the summit would provide opportunities for businesses to collaborate and benefit mutually.

Harare — LAST months's scrapping of duty on information and technology equipment has landed retailers with stockpiles of imported gadgets. Finance Minister Tendai Biti announced the new policy on ICT-related equipment -- computers, telephone, cellphone handsets and printers, among them -- in a bid to encourage use of latest technologies. He was presenting his mid-term fiscal policy review in July.

Windhoek — We have packed our goods and they are now ready do deliver, or are they? Over the last couple of articles we followed goods into the warehouse and out the other end, and today we explore how to get the documentation ready for delivery.

Kampala — THE new chairperson of the ICT parliamentary committee, Igeme Nabeta, seems to be raffling feathers as he implements some of the recommendations handed to him by his predecessor, Edward Baliddawa, last month. Among the issues Baliddawa made public was questions about the cost of the national ICT backbone infrastructure project contained in a brief that queried the total cost of the project.

It was expected that with the switching on of the Seacom fibre-optic submarine cable connecting East Africa to the rest of the world, broadband speeds would improve and Internet costs would reduce at the same time. Consumers are already experiencing faster connectivity, but this is not applying to costs.

RUMOURS wafting from the National Resistance Movement (NRM) headquarters has it that the party will soon launch a modern information and communication centre, the first of its kind in Uganda. This according to sources will be the first fully fledged political party publicity office in the country. It will be the nerve centre from where the party will know what the supporters want by regularly talking to every one of them via radio, TV, newspapers, phone, Internet and email.

Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), Ernest Ndukwe, at the weekend, said Nigeria must embrace Information and Communication Technology if she must achieve her vision 2020. The Federal Government had said that Nigeria was working towards becoming one of the top twenty economies of the world by the year 2020.

Three Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife professors, Timi Kuku, Dean Faculty of Technology, J.A Osunade, Head, Department Of Agricultural Engineering and Dr. Osunade, Director, Information Technology and Communication, have spoken on the school's technology foundation, which has nurtured several graduates, who are now leading developments in the Information Communications and Technology (ICT) development in Nigeria. They spoke ahead of the scheduled plan to recognise and award about 10 graduates of the university who are leading ICT governance and enterprise in the country.

THE Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe and Africom Continental are seeking partners to complete the broadband link between Harare and Mutare as efforts towards firmly establishing the country as the region's information technology hub intensify.

Last week, the Digital Bridge Institute, organised a programme hinging on ICT for development. The three day seminar was unique in the sense that it was structured to unlock the key barring Non Governmental organisations and indeed the civil society from accessing the fund necessary to carry out projects that can encourage a robust Nigerian economy

This week the MacArthur Foundation in conjunction with the Harvard University (yes, that same Harvard our state governors wanted to go to for capacity building) and the Digital Bridge Institute (DBI) held a workshop on Enhancing Civil Society Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Nigeria. The aim of the workshop, which held at the DBI Abuja campus, was to sensitise NGOs in Nigeria on new ICT tools they could use to enhance their work.

Kampala — BURUNDI has become the first African country to benefit from Makerere University's multimillion-dollar computing and information technology centre.

FORGET branch meetings! Robust debates now take place on political parties' group pages on social networking websites like Facebook. Unlike branch meetings where party members discuss issues among themselves, on Facebook they are able to speak directly to their leaders .

Eleven Form One subjects will from January 2010 be taught in digital format. This will also apply to Mathematics and Science in classes Four and Five till the entire system is transformed. The Kenya Institute of Education has prepared the new digital formats in readiness for 2010 rollout.

Kigali City is still recording the highest users of both fixed and mobile telephones per household in Rwanda, according to information attributed to the African Development Bank (AfDB).

Government employees who are required to declare their assets and liabilities for verification by the office of the Ombudsman will be able to do it on-line effectively by next year. The Ombudsman Tito Rutaremara, told The New Times that studies are underway to design the on-line declaration. He added that his office will use both on-line declaration and traditional file based method in the first phase, in areas where Internet in low or no internet.

Kampala — MPS on the information and communication technology committee yesterday grilled ministers and officials from the information and communication technology (ICT) ministry over the botched $10m national IT project. The project, aimed at establishing IT centres in selected districts and eventually wiring the entire country, has been rendered ineffective by incompetence, the MPs noted.

Johannesburg — AFRICA's paucity of fixed-line phone networks has created a huge opportunity for mobile operators to step in and fill the gap for broadband services in a market that could be worth 6bn by 2011. Calculations by telecoms advisory firm Delta Partners suggest that revenue from mobile broadband could boom from 1bn today to hit 6bn in the Middle East and Africa, with Africa contributing most of that growth

IP Africa '09 takes place at the Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa from 30 September to 1 October 2009. The event covers four areas; mobility and wireless, unified communications, virtualisation and the underlying network infrastructure and security. It aims to attract CIO's and decision-makers investing in technology and solutions.

n an effort to promote technology and make more advancement on the electronic path, Rwanda is considering banning the use of paper material in government correspondences by June next year. Deputy CEO of RDB in charge of Information Technology, Nkubito Bakuramutsa, said the move is one of the main targets envisaged in the e-Rwanda Project that seeks to increase the country's connectivity that will fasttrack the country's development through ICT.

Internet users in Kigali City will soon be utilising fast speed mobile wireless Internet called WiBro.RDB Deputy CEO in charge of IT, Nkubito Bakuramutsa said yesterday that the WiBro technology that will enable users to access uninterrupted Internet from any part of the city, will be deployed by the end of September.

Rwanda's Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) industry is growing with the composite network coverage now estimated to be at 90 percent according to official documents. This means that almost the whole country is now covered with ICT. Documents that track the progress of ICT industry under the Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS) also indicate that the number of mobile phone users has now hit 1,322,637.

At the just concluded Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) Annual General Meeting, AGM, held in Abuja, the Nigerian IT Professionals have successfully implemented the electronic voting (e-Voting) process which was automated and conducted electronically and exclusively by Nigerian IT Professionals. With this development, it is evident enough that with real_time electronic_voting is possible for the 2011 National Election is possible if all hands are on deck, especially from the government.

President Paul Kagame yesterday split the Ministry of Science, Technology and ICT, with some attributions going to the Ministry of Education while others remained in the Office of the President. The development follows the approval of the sabbatical leave requested by Minister Prof Romain Murenzi who has been at the helm of the ministry.

The uphill battle that open-source programs face to steal ground from proprietary software comes with added pitfalls in China, where problems like software piracy take away strengths that open source has elsewhere. The Chinese government backs multiple domestic open-source projects, but their software is not widely used. Low awareness, a lack of big open-source projects and difficulty finding expertise in certain programming languages all hamper the development of open source in China, observers and advocates say.

Open-source software needs a higher profile in Washington, D.C., according to a group of about 50 organizations and companies that launched a new campaign to educate U.S. government agencies about the benefits of open source. Members of the Open Source For America coalition, which launched Wednesday, include Google, The Linux Foundation, the Mozilla and Debian projects, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Advanced Micro Devices and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The coalition's goal is not to convince the U.S. government to favor open-source software over proprietary code, but to give open source an equal chance to win government contracts, said Tom Rabon, executive vice president for corporate affairs at Red Hat. In recent years, some open-source groups, particularly outside the U.S., have pushed governments to mandate open-source software instead of using software from U.S.-based Microsoft.

Rwanda's Information and Communication Technology (ICT) penetration level is second lowest in the region, with only three Internet users per 100 inhabitants and 15.5 mobile subscribers per 100 inhabitants. According to a senior research fellow at the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research, Dr Felicien Usengumukiza, Rwanda’s ICT vision is also threatened by strong ICT competition in the EAC region with each member state aiming to be the region’s ICT hub, the East African reported.

OASIS, the international open standards consortium, today announced that its members have approved Identity Metasystem Interoperability (IMI) version 1.0 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. A Web 2.0-friendly method for shared authentication, IMI enables the use of Information Cards, which let people authenticate themselves on multiple web sites without maintaining passwords for each site.

Open Source for America (OSFA) is a group of more than 50 organizations with the primary mission of "the promotion of open source software in the US Federal government arena," according to a press statement from the new organization today. OSFA will be announced today by Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, during his keynote presentation at OSCON. O'Reilly is a member of OSFA's Board of Advisors, which includes a number of people from the Linux and free software community: Mitchell Baker, Eben Moglen, Simon Phipps, Mark Shuttleworth, Michael Tiemann, Andy Updegrove, and Jim Zemlin among them.

When the going gets transparent, the transparent get organized. This morning, the Open Source for America organization was unveiled in San Jose at OSCON to promote the use of open-source software in government.

Linux has a strong history of deployments in government agencies around the globe and has helped drive the adoption of open source applications in government in recent years. But, we have a long, winding road in front of us. Research firm Gartner predicts that only 25% of government vertical, domain-specific applications will either be open source or contain software developed by a community by 2011.

For almost a decade, thanks to privacy laws, U.S. government web sites have been prohibited from using cookies to maintain information on visitors between sessions. (Session cookies are allowed because of their short duration.) Because so many useful features are enabled by cookies, the Office of Management and Budget released a request for proposals this week seeking new perspectives on the cookie policy and ways to enable the features that will make public participation in government more appealing.

The objective of the consultation is to help prepare a new EU strategy for the information society, as the current i2010 strategy is coming to a close this year. All citizens and organisations are welcome to contribute to this consultation. Closing date of the consultation is 9 October 2009. Please note that you are not obliged to answer all questions; you may focus on the areas of interest to you. You can write your replies in any of the official EU languages.

The European Commission's Digital Competitiveness report published today shows that Europe's digital sector has made strong progress since 2005: 56% of Europeans now regularly use the internet, 80% of them via a high-speed connection (compared to only one third in 2004), making Europe the world leader in broadband internet. Europe is the world's first truly mobile continent with more mobile subscribers than citizens (a take up rate of 119%). Europe can advance even further as a generation of "digitally savvy" young Europeans becomes a strong market driver for growth and innovation. Building on the potential of the digital economy is essential for Europe's sustainable recovery from the economic crisis. Today the Commission has asked the public what future strategy the EU should adopt to make the digital economy run at full speed.

The Polish municipality of Jaworzno is migrating all schools to open source. Money saved in this way will be used to increase the number of computers for use by the students. The 27 schools in Jaworzno currently have 553 computers available. Moving to open source should help double this number. Without open source, the Jaworzno municipality estimates it would have had to spend about three million Polish zlotys (approx. €680 000) on proprietary software licences and new computer equipment. Moving to open source will reduce the costs by three quarters.

Nine out of thirteen ministries in the Netherlands have a plan for procuring and implementing open source, according to a report published by NOiV, the Dutch Government's resource centre on open source and open standards. The remaining four will decide on such a strategy soon. The ministries now make use of some two hundred open source applications, the inventory shows. Most-used are open source operating systems, database management systems and web servers. The use of content management systems and web browser Firefox is growing.

As already announced by the Ministry of Interior, starting 28 June 2009, the electronic passports will be replaced by biometric ones. Nevertheless, citizens will have to ask directly the municipal authorities of their region whether they can apply for a new passport or not, since not all of them are equipped to issue biometric passports. More than 2 000 municipalities must be equipped with a total number of 3 500 registration stations. The application can be performed in any municipality that is appropriately equipped, regardless of applicants' place of residence. The only requirement is to apply and then receive the new passport from the same authority.

On 6 July 2009, the Prefecture and the Province of Parma officially launched a pilot project whose objective is to digitise 60 % of the volume of the information exchanged between public authorities by the end of the year 2009. Three months earlier, in March 2009, the Prefecture, the Province and the municipalities of Parma signed a memorandum of intent under which they committed to taking actions aimed at implementing a full digital dialogue between the public entities - Prefecture, Province and municipalities. The parties thus hope to make the procedures and the decision making process faster, more efficient and more cost effective.

Internet voting in Estonia did not aim to replace the traditional methods of voting but was rather used as a supplement. Remote voting was thought to provide the voters with the possibility to vote from their location of choice (home or office), without needing to go to a polling station. Electronic voting takes place during advance polls and government-issued ID-cards are used for voter identification.

By the end of 2009 an updated and more secure digital signature is expected to replace the existing one in Denmark. Five years of experience in the use of the current digital signature has shown that there is a considerable margin for improvement. The new digital signature will apply to all public and private services, including banking. For instance, the digital signature can be used in order for a citizen to pay his/her bills in the bank, change address or deliver his/her tax return.

Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn has ordered a review to detail the threats and benefits associated with using social-networking tools. The review, which is due Aug. 31, should examine what policies and processes are needed to ensure emerging Internet capabilities are used effectively, according to a memo issued July 31.

Have you ever thought about who controls popular applications such as Facebook and Twitter that facilitate informal social networking and information sharing? They belong to private companies, and the government does not always have contracts with them to govern their use of information. Their software resides outside of the government. Informal communications among government employees, or between these employees and contractors or ordinary citizens, can have many benefits. But there are also pitfalls, particularly for those relatively new to the culture of social technologies.

Whereas Web 2.0 is about connecting people through social-networking applications, Web 3.0 will be about connecting information in new ways that people will find more useful and relevant. It'll be a boon for government transparency, but it won't be happening soon.

People who use the Internet to communicate, collaborate and solve problems are far ahead of federal agencies in using emerging technologies and Web 2.0 tools, Federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra said today at the Open Government and Innovations Conference in Washington.

Government database and Web services developers are facing increasing pressure to find new and more effective ways to represent and present complex data patterns graphically.

Here is a sampling of policy recommendations created by the public during the recent Open Government Initiative dialogue. The recommendations were shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license using MixedInk's collaborative writing tool, which enables users to write text and to add to, edit and rate text written by others.

The Open Government Initiative, the Obama administration’s six-week experiment in online public engagement, was bound to be a blockbuster. Experts weigh in on the initiative and the future of online public engagement

Government can achieve goals with minimal effort thanks to new technology tools. The Obama administration has made significant progress toward transparency through the launch of the Data.gov and Recovery.gov Web sites and the Open Government Initiative. Although those initiatives present promising opportunities for increased transparency, federal agencies must balance the need for openness with legal and privacy concerns.

There are many good information technology innovations, but not all the current fads are good for government IT. Some trends are bad in general, and some are very bad for government IT managers in particular. Others are good for some uses but not others. Let’s examine a few of the IT industry fads that make bad matches for government IT, and why they are bad.

The National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) current spending plan for its next generation Electronic Records Archive, (ERA), estimated to cost more than $550 million, doesn't have enough details and the agency doesn’t have a contingency plan for the system or a fully functional backup and restoration process, according to congressional investigators. The Government Accountability Office found methodological weaknesses during a review of NARA's fiscal 2009 spending plan for the program that could limit its ability to keep tabs on the project NARA calls the “Archives of the Future.” However, GAO said in a report released July 24 that the expenditure plan did satisfy legislative requirements.

Legislation approved by the Senate that would require federal contractors to use the E-Verify employment verification system is too broad and goes beyond what is required for federal agencies, according to the Professional Services Council (PSC), which represents service contractors.

Moving Rwanda's economy from an agricultural based one to knowledge based one is part of the major plans that have to be achieved by the year 2020. This called for intense input especially from the ICT sector which has gained much support and government backing to make this goal a reality.

Last week the International Budget Partnership (IBP) released its 2008 version of the Open Budget Index (OBI), which analyzes budget transparency in 85 countries all around the world. Among its main findings, the OBI shows that the level of transparency in the budgetary process is deporable in most of the evaluated countries -only 5 percent of them provide adequate information on spending to the public, while almost 30 percent of them provide very few or any information at all. Although a group of countries are moving forward on this matter, the current state of budget transparency opens the door to waste and misappropriation of public funds in most places. This situation is and will always be delicate, but in this time of expansionary and stimulus policies, an appropriate disclosure of the use of resources becomes very sensitive.

Experts have identified procurement as one of the areas most prone to corruption in the public sector. Corruption in public contracting can take many forms, including bribery, deception (fraud) or simple abuse, affects the efficiency of public spending and donors' resources and creates waste. Corruption is widespread in public procurement and service delivery programs.

San Francisco is setting the US standard for using technology to improve accountability. The Mayor recently announced the launch of a 311 Call Center through Twitter. San Francisco's latest attempt to utilize technology for improved services is an excellent example of how one can use Web 2.0 at the municipal level for achieving improved governance, and going beyond the simple provision of services, even if it is just to provide a stronger feedback loop between the government and the citizens. Of course it is too early to declare victory, as we still need to see if these laudable objectives will actually be implemented.

Johannesburg (IT News Africa) A fresh row has erupted in Zimbabwe after a cabinet minister tabled a draft Information Telecommunication (ICT) bill seeking reform of the industry. ICT Minister, Nelson Chamisa, has been accused by Zanu PF loyalists as trying to re-order functions of three ministries through the bill.

ICT has been designated as a key component in the country's economic transformation, with various accompanying systems under development being key to this journey. The transformation is expected to be fast tracked by embracing the move to a paperless environment within Rwanda.

Minister of State for Education, Aishatu Jibril, said on Monday that government would enforce compulsory ICT training at all levels of education.

InfoWorld's Open Source Hall of Fame recognizes the 36 most important free open source software projects in history (and today)

The 'Blue Book', the annual report on the development of Hungarian Information Society during the past year, has been published for the fourth time. It reveals that in 2008, the development of the Information Society failed to become a priority and a strategic area for the promotion of the socio-economic competitiveness of the country.

On 23 July 2009, the Slovenian Government endorsed the "my.suggestion.gov.si" (predlagam.vladi.si) project; this web tool, whose implementation will start by October 2009, will enhance residents' participation in government policy-making. The project, conceived and run by the Government Communication Office, will open up new channels for direct communication between the government and Slovenian residents as well as among residents themselves. This comes in the context of the government's wider efforts to involve Slovenians in the process of creating government policies and actions.

Chrb writes "BBC News is reporting on how the Alive in Afghanistan project is helping to oversee the Afghan elections using open-source technologies. The site was set up by Brian Conley, who is also responsible for 'Alive in Baghdad', 'Alive in Mexico', and who was arrested for filming protests in China last year. The Afghan site uses FrontlineSMS and Ushahidi to process and visualize SMS texts from Afghani citizens, allowing reports from all over the country to be rapidly collated and re-distributed globally."

France’s national library has been forced to deny rumours that it has sold out to Google over digitization, and thus ended protracted resistance to perceived cultural imperialism. “Following a news item published Tuesday 18 August in La Tribune, the [Bibliothèque Nationale de France] wishes to clarify that it has not signed an agreement with Google for the digitization of its collection,” says the library.

GOVERNMENT says it has embraced the use of information and communication Technology (ICT) as it will reduce the cost of doing business and enhance economic development. Minister of Communications and Transport Geoffrey Lungwangwa said the Government had embraced ICT because it played a vital role in the attainment of social and economic development.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has increased the number of Sub Saharan African countries it is helping to build a reliable statistics systems from 15 to 22. Better statistics is expected to help in the formulation, implementation, and monitoring of sound macroeconomic policies and in making of prudent investment decisions.

The UNESCO Audiovisual E-Platform has been redesigned and improved to include new and more dynamic functionalities, and to increase the number of audiovisual productions from all regions of the world.

Linux may not represent the future of all computing, but it sure provides a compelling example of what a dedicated community can accomplish. With over 1,000 developers actively working on the Linux kernel, representing some 200 different corporations, Linux is an exceptional example of the power of open-source communities, and also speaks to the value of groups like the Linux Foundation that help to shepherd it.

Black Duck has analysed its database of 200,000 open source programs to see which programming languages are most popular. The database is used by the company as part of their compliance and license management services. The analysis of all open source projects shows a clear dominance of C, with 40.9 per cent, followed by C++ at 14 per cent and Java at 10.9 per cent. They are followed by shell scripts, JavaScript, Python, SQL, C# and assembler...

Ten districts in northern Uganda will benefit from a $9.2m ICT fund provided under the second phase of the energy for rural transformation (ERT) project. The money will be channeled through Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) who will oversee the extension of last mile broadband to trading centres and remote institutions in 16 sub counties in the 10 districts.

The National Information Technology Authority - Uganda (NITA-U) is now a reality. "President Museveni accented to the bill on July 15. The ICT top management team are finalising the document," said David Kirya, the ministry's spokesman.

The 3rd International Conference on e-Democracy is taking place in Athens, Greece, on 23-25 September 2009. This year’s conference, under the title “Next Generation Society: Technological and Legal issues”, will explore the following questions: Is our society ready to adopt the technological advances in ubiquitous networking, next generation Internet, and pervasive computing? To what extent will it manage to evolve promptly and efficiently to a Next Generation Society, adopting the forthcoming ICT challenges? In this respect, several topics will be addressed, covering both technological and legal-sociological aspects.

The way we use media is changing, the volume of information enormous, demanding more of us than being able to read, write or use a computer. The European Commission today warned that Europeans young and old could miss out on the benefits of today's high-tech information society unless more is done to make them 'media literate' enough to access, analyse and evaluate images, sounds and texts and use traditional and new media to communicate and create media content. The Commission said EU countries and the media industry need to increase awareness of the many media messages people encounter, be they advertisements, movies or online content.

The Latvian ministry of Regional Development and Municipalities (Raplm) is looking into using open source for all of the government's mail and groupware servers, possibly replacing the proprietary software currently in use. The ministry will make recommendations based on a review of all the server software used by the government. The ministry wants to find out if it is possible to cut costs by moving to open source software for these servers.

The European Commission wants to update its IT standards policy to accommodate open source. The EC published a draft version of its new IT standards policy on 3 July, welcoming comments. In its policy paper "Achieving A Modern Ict Standardisation Policy" the Commission writes that the IT standards policy needs clarification "especially concerning the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) policies in order to accommodate emerging software developing approaches such as the open source model."

The Norwegian public administrations must use ODF and PDF when emailing documents to citizens and enterprises, starting in January 2012. The open document standards are part of a list of IT standards to be used in Norway, the government announced earlier this month. The open IT standards and the open source formats should make it easier for users to access to government information regardless of which software and computer equipment is being used, the government said in a statement.

A peer-reviewed biannual journal on legal issues concerning open source should help to produce a robust legal environment that will support the uptake of free software, comments Carlo Piana, an Italian lawyer specialising in this type of software. The first issue of the 'International Free and Open Source Software Law Review' (Ifosslr) was published this Monday. The journal is "intended for high-level analysis and debate about free and open source software legal issues", the editorial committee explains in a statement on 13 July. This type of software is challenging traditional concepts of intellectual property and collaboration, the editors write.

The Flemish regional government wants to educate its citizens about "free software (open source)", it writes in its coalition agreement, published on 10 July. The open source information is meant to help increase the increase the region's use of the Internet, including electronic government services, media, culture, health services and e-learning.

Of the 232 candidates for the European Parliament that pledged their support for free and open source software, 34 have been elected, from Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. MEPs that signed the 'Free Software Pact' can be found in all six political groups of the European Parliament.

Kenya's fluid ICT sector ownership policy is set to change again as the government moves to spice up investor incentives in an industry that planners say will be critical to economic growth in the next two decades.

Starting on Monday 24 August 2009, the visitors of OSOR.EU, the Open Source Observatory and Repository for European public administrations, can search for applications among the 1749 open source development projects that are currently hosted on ten development websites provided by national and regional public administrations in Austria, France, Italy and Spain.

The new version of the Lithuanian eGovernment portal 'eGovernment Gate' - reachable via www.epaslaugos.lt and www.evaldzia.lt - has already registered over 8 000 users. Currently, the portal offers 18 public eServices. The change of place of residence (in Lithuania and for those moving abroad) declaration service made available on the portal in March 2009 has already been used by 200 Lithuanians. Moreover, since the beginning of the fourth week of July 2009, this service has covered the entire country.

More developers are contributing more code to the development of Linux, and are speeding up in the process, according to a new study from the Linux Foundation. The latest "Who Writes Linux" report is now its second year, tracking the development of Linux from the 2.6.24 kernel to the recent 2.6.30 kernel release. The report found that that there Linux saw a net increase of 2.7 million lines of code between the 2.6.24 and 2.6.30 releases, compared to the almost 300,000 lines added in the run-up to 2.6.24.

Communication officers in government institutions underwent training organized by the Ministry of Information in conjunction with the United Nations. This was in a bid to equip them with better communication skills. During the three-day training that took place at La Pallise, Nyandungu, the officials were urged to use the information in their possession to bridge the communication gap between people and the government.

Secretary General of International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Hamadoun Toure, said on Friday that $8 billion was invested in the development of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in Africa in 2008.

This workshop organised by the European eID Observatory will focus on citizen-related issues of eID and more specifically on the current status of public electronic identity. The workshop is open to all eIdentity stakeholders and in particular to eID practitioners involved in cross-border or cross-sector eID services and researchers, interested practitioners and promotion experts.

The workshop aims to disseminate the award-winning eGovernment and Wireless broadband good practices, as well as discuss the transfer of good practices into the mainstream EU Structural Funds programmes. The workshop is organised by INTERREG IVC Fast Track network PIKE (Promoting Innovation and the Knowledge Economy).

The European Commission has announced the names of the 52 finalists that are going to compete for the European eGovernment Awards 2009. The Awards ceremony will take place on 19th November in Malmö (Sweden). The 52 selected projects are managed by public authorities at local, regional or national level from 17 different European countries, providing services locally or cross-border. All projects make a significant contribution to increasing the efficiency of public services in Europe through the use of digital technologies.

The European Commission's unit responsible for the IDABC programme is organising a special event for public administrations that use or are considering to use open source and open standards, at the Open World Forum conference which is taking place in Paris on 1 and 2 October 2009.

Nairobi — Players in the telecommunications industry meet between October 1 and 2 to iron out emerging issues in the recently published ICT draft regulations, following the enactment of the Kenya Communication Amendment Bill 2009.

Nairobi — Players in the telecommunications industry meet between October 1 and 2 to iron out emerging issues in the recently published ICT draft regulations, following the enactment of the Kenya Communication Amendment Bill 2009.

Harare — Government is committed to creating an enabling environment that promotes the use of Information Communication Technologies in the country, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said on Thursday. PM Tsvangirai was officially opening the ICT Africa Exhibition and Conference at the Harare International Conference Centre.

MonitoringForge.org launched Tuesday in beta and welcomes developers and users of open source network and systems management and monitoring applications to share their tools, experiences and plans for future work. GroundWork Open Source, a maker of open source applications offered as commercial software, started the online effort earlier this year after realizing how many projects specific to management exist.

The European Commission has announced the names of the 52 finalists that are going to compete for the European eGovernment Awards 2009. The Awards ceremony will take place on 19th November in Malmö (Sweden). The 52 selected projects are managed by public authorities at local, regional or national level from 17 different European countries, providing services locally or cross-border. All projects make a significant contribution to increasing the efficiency of public services in Europe through the use of digital technologies.

There are a large number of project management tools designed to support Agile methodologies such as Scrum and eXtreme Programming (XP), including several open source options. This article compares the most compelling open source options on the following criteria: * Feature set * Usability * Viability * Suitability for large projects and products

Members of the Nigerians in Diaspora Oraganisation Europe (NIDOe), a non-governmental organization and umbrella body of Nigerian professionals in European countries, have thumbed up the Kano State governor, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, over his policies on Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

The Central African Backbone (CAB) Program Project for the countries of Cameroon, the Central African Republic, and Chad aims to contribute to increase the geographical reach and usage of regional broadband network services and reduce their prices. There are four components to the project, the first component being enabling environment. The second component is the connectivity. The third component is the eGovernment and flagship Information and Communication Technology (ICT) applications. Finally, the fourth component is the project management.

A new project, 'Don't loose your bearings!' (Non perdere la bussola), starting from the academic year 2009-2010, was presented on 16 September, in the conference room of the State Police, in Rome. Its primary objective is to teach children to responsibly use the Internet. This new project is the fruit of the collaboration of the Communications Police Service, a well known videosharing website and the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research.

Nairobi — Internet firm UUNET Kenya has completed its internal migration from satellite powered data solutions to the Seacom undersea cable. It has also doubled the bandwidth capacity of all its customers.

Kigali — Barely four months since RDB/IT introduced the two models of ICT buses, reports indicate that their impact in improving information technology is already being felt all over the country.

The Center for Technology in Government (CTG) at the University at Albany-SUNY recently released a report targeted at building new capability for enterprise information technology investment decision making for New York State.Creating Enhanced Enterprise Information Technology Governance for New York State: A Set of Recommendations for Value-Generating makes five recommendations:

Open Access Week is coming up on October 19-23, 2009. Here's a taste of what's coming: * DuraSpace is looking for repository success stories to highlight during OA Week. The deadline for entries is September 28. * SPARC is hosting a pre-OA Week Webcast on student engagement on September 30. * The Repositories Support Project is holding a contest to find the UK university which receives the most deposits in its IR during OA Week. * PLoS Medicine, which celebrates its 5th birthday during OA Week, is holding a contest to select the best OA paper in medicine from the past 5 years. * The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations is holding a video contest during OA Week. * Forty-seven German institutions have plans to participate in OA Week. * The Confederation of Open Access Repositories will launch during OA Week. * PubMed Central Canada will launch during OA Week. * Also see the list of events celebrating Open Access Week on the Open Access Directory -- or add your own!

Further to the adoption by UNESCO’s Executive Board, at its 180th session, of the Strategic Plan for the Information for All Programme (IFAP), UNESCO has assumed the task of assisting Member States in the formulation of national information policy frameworks, in particular within the framework of IFAP.

The European Commission's unit responsible for the IDABC programme is organising a special event for public administrations that use or are considering to use open source and open standards, at the Open World Forum conference which is taking place in Paris on 1 and 2 October. Titled 'The Power of Communities', IDABC's Open Source Event 2009 will take place on 2 October.

The African Network for Localisation (ANLoc) - Localise Software sub-project is excited to announce a call for language teams to localise software into TEN African languages.

The European multilingual digital library Europeana provides access to digitised books, maps, photographs, film clips and newspapers to all internet users. It was first launched in November 2008 (IP/08/1747) and has managed to double the size of its collections in less than one year disposing today of 4.6 million digitised objects, compared to 2 million items 9 months ago.

On 25 August 2009, the Hungarian government published a list of seven IT companies that will assist public administration and schools in applying open source and open standard solutions. The Hungarian Senior State Secretariat for Informatics, E-Government and ICT, has reserved 6 billion HUF (around 22 million euros) for projects on open source and open standards, and signed agreements with seven private IT companies.

Nigeria is to showcase its achievements and opportunities in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) at the forthcoming International Telecommunications Union (ITU) world conference between October 5 and 9 in Palexpo, Geneva, Switzerland

On 9 September 2009, the Department for Innovation, Universities and Enterprise of the Catalan Government ("Generalitat") signed along with the Open Administration of Catalonia Consortium and the Catalan Association of Public Universities (ACUP) an agreement aimed at promoting eGovernment development in these universities.

A contract for the development and implementation of an Electronic Document Management System (eDMS) in the Government and ministries was signed on 2 September 2009. The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Information Society, Professor Dr. Vujica Lazovic and a representative of a consortium headed by a Podgorica-based company and a system integration firm based in Ljubljana and Belgrade, signed a draft contract for the development and implementation of an information system for the management of governmental and ministerial documents

"There is a new relationship developing between the state and its citizens. Free software is rejuvenating these social relations this century", said the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in his opening speech of the second edition of the International Free Software and Electronic Government (Consegi) in the capital, Brasília on 26 August.

A guide in Portuguese to OA policies for research institutions and funders.

The Arabic word ‘Majaliss’ means ‘a place of sitting’ used to describe various types of formal legislative assemblies in Islamic countries; it is also a common term used for a meeting, dialogue or exchange. UNESCO’s Digital Library Majaliss offers a modern platform for sharing digitised books of classical Arabic literature among a large and diverse public

REPORTS have revealed that Egypt’s overall economy expanded by 4.7 percent in the fiscal year through June, driven by the expansion of its ICT sector which grew by 14.6 percent. In the past year, Egypt has strengthened its position as one of the world’s fastest growing outsourcing destinations through a number of international Memorandum of Understandings and investment in the country’s ICT infrastructure and education.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has launched a revamped Web portal that agency officials say is more user-friendly, interactive and informative than its predecessor.

ohannesburg ( IT News Africa) South Africa yesterday launched a R7.6 million Visitor Information Centre in Rustenburg 262 day ahead of 2010 FIFA World Cup

As you may know a pre-conference to the 5th Ministerial eGovernment Conference 2009 is under preparation. The conference is hosted under the Swedish Presidency of the EU, and is arranged by Vinnova, the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems, and the City of Malmö.

Lagos — NIGERIAN telecommunications sector that is adjudged the fastest growing telecom market in the world is faced with challenges even as it tries to maintain sustainable regulatory standards for the industry.

Scientists who receive subsidies from the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) must make their scientific publications available on the internet. That is the view of prominent library directors and scientists. Minister Plasterk (Science, [Dutch Labor Party]) agrees with them on "the principle that all research funded by public money should be accessible to everyone."

Kampala — Makerere University's Faculty of Computing and Information Technology (CIT) on Friday passed out over 300 women who excelled in a computer applications training programme in basic ICT skills for Ugandan Women Health Practitioners.

Despite being a 'late-comer' in embracing the use of Information Communication Technology, Africa has embraced ICT tools that have put the continent on the right development path. "Being late-comers in embracing, and indeed starting from a low base in creating information and communication technology sectors, ICT is nonetheless fundamentally transforming our nations and continent," Kagame told the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) 2009 Summit which opened in Geneva, Switzerland yesterday.

THE Chief Justice, Benjamin Odoki, on Tuesday launched the Judiciary website during a function at Grand Imperial Hotel in Kampala. He said the website would enable the judiciary challenge corruption through providing access to judicial information as one of its major functions. He said it was a major step in the use of information and communications technology to improve justice delivery.

The Rwanda Development Board / Information Technology (RDB/IT) Thursday officially launched ICT buses in a bid to bridge the digital divide country-wide. The launch of national pilot project was officiated by the Minister of Commerce and Trade, Monique Nsanzabaganwa, at Kamonyi district head-quarters in the Southern Province.

UNESCO’s initiative to upgrade journalism schools in Africa to Centers of Excellence and Centers of Reference in journalism education is gaining momentum. Recently, UNESCO and the Science and Technology Commission of the African Union signed an agreement in support of 21 of those Centers, the first-ever journalism department at the University of Bangui in Central African Republic as opened in collaboration with one of the Centers (ESSTIC), international twinning arrangements were facilitated and study tours between the potential Centers of Excellence and internationally based Universities were organized.

African researchers are missing out on publications and career advancement because they are failing to negotiate joint ownership of data generated by international research collaborations, a meeting has heard. Elly Katabira, associate professor of medicine at Uganda's Makerere University College of Health Sciences, said that African researchers are often indifferent to data ownership

France's national computer science institute, Inria, says free software is essential to develop digital society. The institute is launching a research centre to focus on this type of software, Cirill (IT Innovation and Research Centre for Free Software).

African parliamentarians meeting in Nairobi ahead of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen have vowed to voice a common position against the harsh environmental conditions brought by climate change.

Information and communication technology (ICT) sector players in Kenya have been given another month to study the new regulations that will govern the sector before they are implemented.

ITU is encouraging its Member States to adopt school-based community broadband plans to bring ICT access to disadvantaged and vulnerable groups. The ITU effort was endorsed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the ITU TELECOM WORLD Youth Forum, in the presence of ITU Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun Touré and the Director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT), Sami Al Basheer.

From 1-30 September 2009 the Federal Ministry of Interior will be presenting online the topics for discussion regarding the shaping of a national eGovernment strategy under the title 'eGovernment 2015 - ideas for a national eGovernment strategy'.

This is the nineteenth in a series of annual conferences supported by the European Commission, which bring together over 650 delegates from leading commercial, government and research organisations around the world to bridge the Digital Divide, by sharing knowledge, experience, lessons learnt and good practice.

The European Commission today called on Europe's information and communication technologies (ICT) industry to outline by 2011 the practical steps it will take to become 20% more energy efficient by 2015. ICT equipment and services alone account for about 8% of electrical power used in the EU and about 2% of carbon emissions.

Today the European Commission welcomed the growing commitment by Europe's tech companies to attract more women to the information and communication technologies (ICT) industry. Only six months after the European Commission launched a code of best practices for women in the ICT sector (IP/09/344) , the number of signatories committed to encourage young women to study and follow careers in the telecoms, technology and internet industries has grown from initially five to now 28 – a more than five fold increase.

The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has given his blessings to the International Telecommunications Union's (ITU) call to Member States to adopt school-based community broadband plans to bring ICT access to disadvantaged and vulnerable groups.

President Mugabe yesterday said information communication technology should not be used as weapons of aggression, but as tools for international peace, understanding and solidarity.

The outlook for IT jobs in 2009 may not be as bad as some observers suggest. While some indicators and surveys are showing some declines in tech jobs, none predict a precipitous drop. In fact, a federal economic stimulus package may even add IT positions.

Long-term supporters of the e-Parliament will know that over the past couple of years we have found ourselves increasingly focusing on the issue of Climate Change. Now we feel the time is ripe to adjust the structure of the e-Parliament to reflect this development with the creation of a Climate Parliament as a direct subsidiary of the larger organisation.

The European e-Skills conference on 20 November 2009 in Brussels will address: The crucial importance of ICT professionalism for the EU economy and society; The progress of the implementation of the e-skills strategy and projects; The road ahead for a coordinated strategy to foster ICT professionalism, e-skills and innovation for economic recovery.

Despite being a 'late-comer' in embracing the use of Information Communication Technology, Africa has embraced ICT tools that have put the continent on the right development path.

The Gombe State government has concluded arrangements to introduce e-pension payment for local government pensioners, the Chairman of Gombe State Local Government Pensions Board, Ahmed Labilwa Madugu has disclosed.

Kenya will be presenting a strategy to bridge the digital divide at the ITU Telecom World 2009 conference starting on Monday in Geneva, Switzerland.

Friprog, Norway's open source competence centre, will be the first organisation besides the Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR) itself to implement the OSOR search widget on its website.

More projects seem to be coming across my desk that ultimately involve building information systems whose primary requirements come from legislation or regulations. And sometimes even the detailed requirements.

The composition of the new National Information Technology Authority (Nita) board members and the appointment of its top officials have raised eyebrows in the Information and Communication Technology ministry with some officials citing conflict of interest and favouritism, Sunday Monitor has learnt.

Claims that industrial sabotage has crept into the telecommunications sector threaten to tarnish the otherwise-stellar performance of the industry.

The overall number of defects in open-source projects is dropping, a new study by vendor Coverity has found. Coverity, maker of tools for analyzing programming code, received a contract in 2006 from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to help boost the quality of open-source software, which is increasingly being used by government agencies.

In the wake of the General Services Administration's (GSA's) launch of its Apps.gov cloud computing storefront, Google has announced that it will soon offer a set of cloud services to government through Apps.gov.

One legal appeal failed, but another last-ditch appeal has been filed in another court to stop the E-Verify rule for federal contractors from going into effect today.

Wikis can work wonders as project management tools--if you understand their limitations and know how to use them effectively. Here's what you need to know to use wikis for IT project management.

Google is great, but it can't always tell you what makes a website or source of research material authoritative. Professional librarians and researchers explain where to look online to find the professional, technical and industry expertise you need.

The Department of Finance and Personnel for Northern Ireland (DFP) on 13 August started a pilot web site, OpenDataNI, to "improve access to government information and data, and stimulate creative use of that information and data beyond the walls of government". "The government produces masses of information and data hidden away in obscure publications or odd corners of websites", the DFP writes in a short introduction on the new web site. "The inaccessibility of this data and information means that it is difficult for its owners - you - to do something useful with it."

The ministry of Public Administration now owns the source code to many of the country's applications that offer electronic government services. This is progress towards open source, said the deputy minister of Energy and Mining, Blerim Rexha, speaking at the Software Freedom Kosova Conference that took place last week in Prishtina. "Previously, the government only had the executables, not the source code."

The Swiss Parliamentary Group for Digital Sustainability is calling on the schools in the country to start using open source software in education. A tender published on 2 September by a public school in the municipality of Jegenstorf in the canton of Bern drew the ire of the group of politicians. "Again and again, public tenders request Microsoft Windows. This is annoying, especially when it concerns purchases by schools, as national and international examples show Linux is a valid alternative", the group writes in a statement.

Efforts by the state government to retool for knowledge economy with Information Communication Technology for global competitiveness have started yielding results with the level of interest shown by Ministry of Science & Technology of many states government at the just concluded IT Public- Private Forum, (ITPPF) held in Kano State recently.

As the two day national workshop on the status and software development in Nigeria, stakeholders have called for improvement of local content in software development in Nigeria, as a critical element for realization of Vision 20:2020.

The conference, organised by PEPPOL project, will focus on the role of service providers and middleware suppliers in Pan European Public Procurement. This three day event is targeted to different audiences from executives and decision makers to IT-architects and programmers.

The European Commission call for good practice cases in the field of eGovernment received a total of 259 submissions from 31 European countries competing in four categories for the prestigious European eGovernment Awards title. Following an eligibility screening, a panel of independent experts will evaluate these applications in order to select 52 finalists. The shortlisted cases will have the opportunity to exhibit at the 5th Ministerial eGovernment Conference taking place 19 - 20 November 2009 in Malmö (SE) during which the winners will be selected and announced.

In August 2009, the Icelandic Ministry of Education announced its intention to promote the use of free and open source software in schools across the country. Following the government's policy in March 2008 on free and open source software for all institutions that are operated by public funds, the Icelandic Ministry of Education is seeking collaboration with those parties interested in increasing the use of free and open source software in schools. The reason is twofold: firstly, this initiative would considerably increase students' skills and knowledge on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and secondly, it would be a cost-effective educational method for schools.

The United States annually uses about 4 million tons of copy paper -- the type used in fax machines and computer printers -- and spends $4 billion yearly on it, according to Cutting Paper, a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Web site that's sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. The 13th Judicial Circuit court in Hillsborough County, Fla., is doing just that after enlisting a document management system to digitize records. It drastically cut the amount of paper used and enabled information to be distributed electronically.

The Management of the Computerize Nigeria Project (CNP) will launch the biggest ICT Mall in Africa, in Abuja, in the first quarter of 2010. This ambitious project which commenced last year, and is nearing completion, is designed to sustain the promotion of Digital knowledge Democracy as an ingredient in structuring Nigeria as a knowledge driven nation in the information and knowledge century.

The newly elected German government plans to support open standards and open source software. In its four-year coalition contract, the government led by chancellor Angela Merkel, writes it wants to orient its IT systems on open standards and include open source solutions. Together with its sister party CSU and her liberal coalition partner (FDP), the government parties have constructed a 133 page coalition contract, which, in the chapter "Information and Media Society" declares intentions to expand e-Government by increasing electronic communication options for both citizens and enterprises.

A record number of delegates from the world’s leading information and communication technology (ICT) policy makers are meeting this week in Beirut in an effort to come to grips with the pressing challenges of a fast-changing technology environment.

The introduction of an electronic data transfer mechanism in 2011 will bring about the abolition of the German paper income tax card, which will be issued for the last time in 2009. In 2010, this data, that until now has been held by local population registration authorities, will be transferred to the Federal Central Tax Office in preparation of the new system's rollout.

Viviane Reding Member of the European Commission responsible for Information Society and Media Bringing down walls and barriers in the digital world – priorities for the European Digital Agenda 'Visby Agenda: Creating impact for an eUnion 2015' Visby/Gotland, 9 November 2009

GILAT, an Israeli communications firm, has launched a platform to support e-government initiatives like e-voting, health and education through satellite Internet broadband. Gilat's entry into broadband provision presents a strange twist in an industry that has been excited by the arrival of the undersea fibre optic cables, which are viewed as cheaper.

Limited access to broadband Internet is crippling the spread of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the developing world and widening the already significant digital divide, a report has warned.

The House of Re-presentatives yesterday said Nigeria cannot afford to adopt the electronic voting system now because of the high level of illiteracy amongst the electorate, the challenge of epileptic power as well as the huge cost implications inherent in the project.

The EP delegation for relations with the Pan-African Parliament was in South Africa for the First Session of the second PAP parliamentary term. MEPs met with newly elected President Ndele and the Vice President and Head of PAP delegation to the EP, Mary Mugyenyi on the 25th and 26th of October 2009. They attended the Opening Ceremony, which was addressed by President Zuma, and adopted a full programme for 2010 for Joint Meetings with emphasis on strengthening the parliamentary dimension of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy in the build-up to the EU-AU Summit at the end of next year.

The Federal Communications Commission has completed a three-year upgrade of its Electronic Comments Filing System (ECFS) and has converted more than seven million pages of documents into text-searchable files, Bill Cline, director of the FCC's information reference center, said today.

The declaration signed on 18 November 2009 in Sweden by the EU ministers outlines a joint forward-looking vision and defines policy priorities to be achieved by 2015.

Government has unveiled the National Information Communication strategic plan that will run from 2010 to 2014, and is expected to usher the country into the global information "super highway". Expectations are also high that the new strategic plan would transform Zimbabwe into a knowledge society and contribute significantly to the growth and development of the national economy.

THE National Directorate of Employment said it has registered 4,790 youths across the country for training in information and computer technology and other vocations that will make them be self-reliant. The State Coordinator of NDE, Mrs. Buchi Ojei, who made this known at the take-off of the programme in Enugu yesterday, explained that about 130 youths in the state would benefit from the scheme, which also include training in networking and computer repairs.

The BTC Group will be hosting the South African Telecommunication Association (SATA) 10th SADC Telecom Operators' Bilateral Meeting (STOBM) at the Gaborone International Convention Centre (GICC) this week. The Meeting brings together SATA members and their stakeholders in one place to discuss and agree on bilateral issues on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). This meeting creates an opportunity for operators to negotiate interconnect rates, network fraud and linkages and also agree on technical issues including infrastructure connectivity as well as quality of service issues.

National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Prof. Maurice Iwu, has made a strong case for the use of the Electronic Voting System (EVS) in future elections in the country, saying it remains the best option for a society like ours.

As a follow-up of the report of the High Level Group on Multilingualism, the European Commission initiated a study with the aim to investigate the impact on language learning of ICT and new media. The research deals with innovative learning methods as a complement to traditional face-to-face learning and teaching, both within and beyond the framework of formal education systems. The research presents an overview of formal and informal language learning in eight different European countries.

Open standards have been made mandatory for the IT systems of Hungary's public administrations. The Hungarian parliament voted in favour of amendments prescribing open standards, to a law on electronic government services, on 14 December [2009]. The changes received 197 votes in favour, one against and 146 abstentions, according to the Open Standard Alliance, a Hungarian advocacy group that lobbied for the amendments.

In a statement published on 27 January 2010, the Ministry for Modernisation and Innovation of the Spanish Autonomous Region of Galicia said it wants to boost the use of free and open source software by its public administrations and citizens, by bringing together all its previous initiatives on open source.

Hosted by the Government of South Africa in Durban from 19th to 21st May 2010, and supported by the European Commission (EC), IST-Africa 2010 will focus on the Role of Information Communications Technologies (ICT) for Africa’s Development and specifically on Applied ICT research topics addressing major societal and economic challenges, which is part of the EC’s ICT Theme of Framework Programme 7 (FP7). These issues will repeatedly be addressed in connection with the 8th Partnership of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) on Science, Information Society and Space, which will be the core topic of several sessions.

The outgoing Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Ernest Ndukwe, has leaked his success strategies during his 10 years reign as NCC's frontline officer. Speaking at a special induction into the Nigeria Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Hall of Fame, organized by the Joint Action Committee on ICT Awareness and Development (JACITAD), last Saturday in Lagos, Ndukwe said that major strength of his administration throughout his stay at NCC as the chief executive officer, was the ability to consult widely.

South Africa-based Information Technology giant Integr8 IT has entered into negotiations with a local company to invest in the country's information technology sector this year. Integr8 IT co-owner and founder Mr Rob Sussman said the company's strategy to expand to the rest of Africa is to go with local equity partners and make empowerment a key component to invest back into businesses and people.

For the Chief Executive Officer of Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation CTO, Dr Ekwow-Spio Garbrah, a major challenge facing the development of ICT in the commonwealth is that despite major advances, well over 70 percent of Commonwealth developing countries, especially the rural communities were still not connected to the information super-highway.

The very positive stride recorded in the global development of Information Communications Technology has made human existence easier than could have been imagined. The developed countries of Europe and America have taken advantage of the numerous benefits of ICT to appreciably enhance their developmental profile particularly in the areas of human capacity building, knowledge acquisition and the creation of innumerable opportunities for the individual to optimize his potentials.

The Nigerian IT community will tomorrow in Lagos converge for the much awaited Broadband forum organized by eWorld Magazine. The Managing Editor of eWorld, Aaron Ukodie said at the weekend that all is now set for the capacity building conference that will attract stakeholders in the Nigerian IT industry which has continued to be the toast of international community.

Government will this year finalise the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) regulations to provide the necessary legislation for the growth of the sector. There have been a number of policies to drive the sector but the regulations to anchor those policies are missing, ICT Minister Nelson Chamisa said on Monday.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) says the prices for ICT services are falling worldwide but broadband Internet remains outside the reach of many people in poor countries. In its report entitled "Measuring the Information Society 2010" ITU said the ICT Development Index (IDI), which ranks 159 countries according to their ICT level, confirms that despite the recent economic downturn, the use of ICT services has continued to grow worldwide.

As the world continues to develop at a faster pace in the 21st century, access information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) has become a critical tool in human advancement. Knowing this potential very well, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament said the use of ICT is unavoidable in the developmental agenda of the West African sub-region, especially, in the area of education.

On 9 February 2010, the Austrian Internet Declaration was presented and handed over to the Federal Chancellor Werner Faymann, and Minister of Finance Josef Pröll by the leading representatives of the Austrian Internet industry. Almost two years ago, the 'Austrian Internet Initiative' (Die Internetoffensive Österreich, in German) started a joint effort of the ICT stakeholders of Austria to develop a national ICT strategy. 400 experts, approximately 170 companies and organisations and more than 35 Chief Executive Officers (CEO) and executives of leading IT companies joined forces to create the 'Austrian Internet Declaration' as a basis for an ICT strategy for Austria.

On 19 February 2010, the Italian Council of Ministers approved the new version of the eGovernment Code proposed by the Ministry of Public Administration (PA) and Innovation. Once the approval procedure has been completed, the new Code will be published as a legislative decree. This will launch the next step towards achieving a new, digital and simplified Administration within the next three years, in compliance with the E-Gov Plan 2012.

The PIKE community is an interactive forum that is intended to exchange and transfer eGovernment and wireless broadband good practices and to discuss how to best convey these good practices into the mainstream Structural Funds programmes and regional policy. Ultimately, the community aims to provide a forum for all the regional, local and national eGovernment and wireless broadband practitioners in Europe to meet and share their expertise, good practices and knowledge, to request and provide support.

6 - 7 May 2010, Berlin, Germany This conference will offer a platform to discuss present and future challenges of European population registration with representatives from local, national and EU administrations and cooperating economies. Among the key topics: national eIdentity initiatives in Europe, privacy protection innovations and unique identifiers in population registration, eGovernment policy and efficiency across Europe. The conference is organised by the eTen funded RISER service - one of the first trans-European eGovernment services in European Civil registration.