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| Photo credit: © © ACE STOCK LIMITED/Alamy |
In conjunction with the World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC-10), ITU’s
Telecommunication Development Bureau has organized a series of side events for Member
States and Sector Members to address various ICT development themes, from the Connect a
School, Connect a Community initiative, to ways of measuring the information society, the ITU
Academy, trends in policy and regulatory reform, spectrum management and digital broadcasting,
and e-health.
Connect a School, Connect a Community
Seminar and ministerial round table
When Connect a School, Connect a Community
was launched at ITU Telecom World 2009 at a session of the
Youth Forum, United Nations Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon urged world leaders to support the effort
of connecting all schools by 2015. ITU has identified
and compiled in an online Toolkit best practice on
policies, regulation, low-cost computing devices and
practical experiences in connecting schools, including
establishing school-based community ICT centres
(see www.connectaschool.org). Various innovative
measures can be taken to connect schools and
communities.
Thematic information sessions
Measuring the information society
Telecommunication/ICT policy-makers and regulators
need to be well informed about ICT uptake in
their countries. They also need to be able to compare
their own countries with other countries to assess
progress and see where they could be doing better.
ITU statistics, in particular the latest ICT
Development Index and ICT Price Basket (released in
February 2010) are two benchmarking tools to monitor
information society developments worldwide. The
Index ranks 159 economies. A complementary perspective
is given by the World Telecommunication/ICT Development Report 2010, which reviews progress
towards the achievement of the WSIS targets (see
article ITU calls for broadband Internet access for half the world’s population by 2015). ITU’s work on ICT measurement
faces challenges related to data collection and
dissemination, but members can help to improve the
availability and quality of data in various ways. For
more information, contact: Indicators@itu.int.
ITU Academy
The ITU Academy aims to strengthen the human,
institutional and organizational capacity of developing
countries by offering high-quality opportunities
for ICT learning and development. Ultimately, the ITU
Academy will provide a web-based platform constituting
a single access point to all ITU training interventions,
whether delivered face-to-face or through
instructor-led or self-paced distance learning, in areas
such as business and management, policy and
regulation, and technologies and services.
The ITU Academy has a rapidly growing global
network of partner institutions that provide training
and education. The network includes more than
60 Internet Training Centres, which offer Internet and
IP-related training programmes designed to develop
“new economy“ professionals. It also includes more
than 50 centres of excellence, which share their expertise,
resources and capacity-building know-how.
For more information, visit the new ITU Academy
portal at: http://academy.itu.int.
Trends in policy and regulatory reform
ITU’s unique regulatory online tools allow users
to keep up with the latest regulatory trends and innovative
approaches in a converging ICT sector.
Information on the regulatory issues discussed at
the Global Symposium for Regulators, the focus of
Trends in Telecommunication Reform, and new regulatory
and economic studies is available through ITU,
in particular the ITU’s ICT EYE portal, the ITU-infoDev
ICT Regulation Toolkit, the ICT Regulatory Decisions
Clearinghouse, as well as G-REX — ITU’s online discussion
forum for regulators and policy-makers.
Spectrum management and digital broadcasting
ITU provides assistance in the technical and regulatory
procedures for managing the spectrum allocated
to the land mobile, fixed and broadcasting
services through its SMS4DC (spectrum management
system for developing countries) computer program.
The program is fully compliant with the relevant ITU
recommendations.
ITU also provides guidance for countries on
switching from analogue to digital broadcasting (see
article on Going digital). The guidelines show how to
make a national plan for a smooth transition, including
technical, policy, legal, regulatory, social, economic
and customer-related aspects. The guidelines
also cover consultation to develop road maps and
training on digital broadcasting technologies and
policies, including spectrum aspects.
e-Health
Future e-health activities led by ITU aim at enhancing
countries’ capacity to develop or update
national e-health strategic plans to help shape an
effective regulatory, governance and policy context
for e-health development and investment. ITU also
offers guidance in planning appropriate ICT infrastructure
for e-health to reach desirable outcomes or
to introduce cost-effective and large scale e-health
services with minimal resources.
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