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Girls in ICT

WTIS 2014

 
 
 
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The 12th World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Symposium (WTIS) took place from 24-26 November 2014, in Tbilisi, Georgia.
 
A pre-event took place on 23 November 2014.
 
The WTIS is organized by the Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and hosted by the Government of Georgia. The WTIS, held annually, is the main global forum to discuss international ICT statistics and information society measurement.

WTIS-2014 brought together ICT ministers, heads of national telecom/ICT regulatory authorities and national statistical offices, heads of international organizations, chief executive officers of private sector companies, and statistical experts from around the world. It serves as the main international forum to discuss international ICT statistics.

The ITU flagship report Measuring the Information Society Report 2014 was launched at WTIS on 24 November. The report features the latest ICT Development Index (IDI), a benchmarking tool that monitors information society developments worldwide. The latest IDI captures the level of ICT developments in 166 economies worldwide, presents country rankings, and compares progress made during the past two years. The IDI is based on official, comparable country data and is the only ICT index that covers such a large number of economies, from both developed and developing regions. 

WTIS-2014 began with a full day of high-level panels that addressed a number of pertinent and timely questions related to ICT policy and measurement, including the post 2015 development agenda and future priorities for ICT for development (ICT4D) policy, the use of big data for development and the measuring of competition, regulation and affordability of ICT services.

The other sessions of WTIS-2014 included a discussion on data quality in ICT statistics, approaches towards open data policies, and progress of the work carried out by the Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development. The results of the work of the Expert Group on Telecommunication/ICT Indicators (EGTI) and the Expert Group on Household indicators (EGH) were presented for adoption by the WTIS-2014.

A limited number of side events were organized during the meeting for countries to present their data collection and dissemination platforms.

The WTIS, open to all the ITU membership, is primarily targeted at those responsible for ICT statistics in relevant Ministries, regulatory agencies, telecommunication operating companies and national statistical offices. Experts interested in the subject of information society measurements are also welcome to attend the Symposium.