Welcome Rakan Sarawak October 2005

Rangkaian Khidmat Awam Negeri Sarawak

A MONTHLY SUPPLEMENT OF RAKAN SARAWAK BULLETIN

(People, events, activities and programmes which make for a total quality-managed Sarawak Civil Service)

ISSN 1394-5726

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Sarawak ICT Week 2005 Buck-up and Get IT!

Seventy percent of Sarawak ’s population will
embrace ICT by 2020 – Pehin Sri Haji
Abdul Taib Mahmud

The State government has been doing a lot to promote IT among the public.Thus, with such opportunity provided at hand,everyone in the society must grab this opportunity to upgrade his or her knowledge in IT.

As its continuous effort to promote IT and create the k-society for Sarawak,the State government,together with the Information and Communication Technology Unit (ICTU) of the Chief Minister ’s Department, organized the second ‘Sarawak ICT Week 2005 ’.

This year ’s Sarawak ICT Week kicked off with a series of events, two conferences,a seminar,a website award dinner and an expo.

Started on 19th until 25th September 2005,the events, with its catchy theme ‘Get IT ’, saw a huge participation from people of all walks of life.The Chief Minister,Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib bin Mahmud officially launched the events and simultaneously opened the first conference on the 20th.

In his speech during the official function,the Chief Minister called upon all IT users, particularly the private sectors to adopt information and communication technology more aggressively in order to be competitive in the business world.

While the big businesses had already adopted the ICT,the smaller businesses should upgrade their ambitions so that they could catch up with the rest in the private sectors.

On schools,Taib hoped for all schools in Sarawak to be provided with IT,particularly internet access. Although it is not easy to provide these facilities,especially to schools in rural divisions,he said, the State Government would have to work this out with the Federal Government.

Hoping that a plan could be worked out in the Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP),he was hopeful for all schools to be in full coverage of ICT facilities by 2010.

The first conference,the Public ICT Conference began on the 19th and ended on the 20th .The conference involved the public sectors and also the Chief Information Officers (CIOs) of the government departments and agencies.

With its theme,‘K-society in Sarawak:Making IT Happen ’,the conference was attended by 234 delegates with 17 speakers presenting one paper each.The speakers were locals as well as from West Malaysia. Meanwhile, the State Secretary,Datuk Amar Haji Abdul Aziz Dato Haji Husain who officiated the second conference on the 21st ,State Public Service ICT Conference (21 to 22nd ),urged all government servants to start making full use of
IT facilities available in order to achieve the State ’s target of achieving a full-fledged E-Government by 2008.

Abdul Aziz lamented that there are still low usage of IT facilities among the civil servants and that the head of departments should encourage and train their staff on the ground to be IT savvy. The two-day conference was participated by those of the government departments and agencies,the CIOs,Information and Communication Technology Security Officers (ICTSOs),and also the webmasters.

Twenty papers were presented involving eleven speakers mainly from the State and Federal government departments (locals and West Malaysians)as well as agencies shared their vast knowledge and expertise in the their presentations.

Besides the conferences,seminar themed “Remote Sensing Data Application Awareness ” was held on 21 st and attended by political leaders and head of government departments.