May 2005 saw the establishment of ictQATAR, or the Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology. Its mission is to create an advanced information-based society to improve the life of everyone in Qatar and to enhance the social and economic development of the country. "Qatar aims to fully exploit ICT to become a world-leading knowledge-based society," says Dr Hessa Al Jaber, Secretary-General of ictQATAR."

Based on international best practices, ictQATAR has adopted a comprehensive national ICT strategic plan tailored specifically to the unique circumstances and requirements of the country.

Implementation of the strategy brings together government agencies, ministries and the private sector. The strategy aims at fostering an enabling environment for ICT, increasing readiness, promoting the usage of ICT, monitoring progress and prioritizing initiatives to achieve early results.

		ictQATAR’s key objectives
		Foster the environment	Develop the market conditions, infrastructure and supporting legal and regulatory frameworks that are most conducive to ICT development.
		Increase readiness	Build awareness and reduce barriers to the use of ICT by citizens, businesses and government agencies.
		Raise usage	Increase internet usage among citizens, businesses and government agencies, through targeted government policies to provide incentives and support the development of compelling content.
		Sustain impact	Continuously gauge progress, measure impact, and refine initiatives accordingly.
		Target early results	Prioritize initiatives and secure quick results to sustain momentum and support.

 

State-of-the-art infrastructure
This programme aims to provide broadband connectivity for all, wireless neighbourhoods and a world-class National Data Centre to provide the secure storage of data that is essential to the ongoing success of business in the Information Society.

Innovation and capability building
The objective of this programme is to foster ICT literacy through educational projects. It also aims to stimulate the ICT job market and the development of technology ventures, including research and development. Under the programme, foreign ICT enterprises will be encouraged to open development centres in Qatar.

Regulatory and legal frameworks
The purpose of this programme is to draft the regulatory and legal frameworks required to govern a competitive market, while ensuring universal access. Also under this programme, laws will be developed to protect privacy and prevent cybercrime, and e-commerce regulations will be compiled to enable secure transactions.

Safety and security
This critically important programme covers the creation of a Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), with the mission of making Qatar a regional ICT security hub. It also has the task of setting up emergency communications in support of disaster relief operations.

Connected citizens
Encouraging the creation of interesting content and attractive online services is the purpose of this programme. It also aims to connect more homes to high-speed internet access and increase the number of computers and other access devices in households.

Connected business
This programme will encourage small and medium-sized businesses to invest in information systems, software and internet access. It will also promote the use of ICT to make business processes more efficient.

Connected government
To enable the delivery of online data, information and services, this programme seeks the deployment of a government-wide intranet.

e-Education

Under this programme, ictQATAR will promote and support opportunities for the adoption of ICT into education by laying the ground for the development of systems, training of resources and upgrading infrastructure across educational institutions and for the community at large. This will be coupled by the development of standards and guidelines for ICT in education to expedite and facilitate the creation of our knowledge communities.

e-Health
This programme will implement such projects as the Electronic Health Card, Electronic Patient Network and the Integrated Healthcare Network connecting all healthcare institutions and bodies.

e-Finance
This programme focuses on ensuring the security and integrity of financial transactions, the diversification of delivery channels for financial services, and the deployment of electronic billing and payment systems.

e-Tourism and sports
The broadband internet connectivity of hotels, conference centres and other public areas is to be improved under this programme. It will also make high-quality mobile and wireless broadband available in sports facilities, and develop services and applications such as high speed video streaming and web hosting.

ICT in other economic sectors
The use of ICT in industries such as oil and gas will be promoted through this programme, as well as the adoption of e-Procurement to streamline supply chain management in day-to-day business and commerce for improved efficiency and effectiveness.

Key initiatives

Within the framework of these 12 programmes, ictQATAR has started implementing five key initiatives.

ictQATAR has appointed a renowned international law firm to draft telecommunications and e-commerce legal and regulatory frameworks. Progress is well under way on a number of fronts, including:

drafting amendments to the existing ICT Act

proposing new primary legislation or secondary legislation, as appropriate

drafting appropriate secondary legislation (bylaws, regulations, rules of procedure) for such issues as licensing, pricing, and privacy protection

establishing a regulatory authority within ictQATAR

developing an e-legislation framework to address a wide range of topics from censorship to electronic transactions, digital signatures, encryption and piracy

In December 2005, the Qatar Computer Emergency Response Team (Q-CERT) was established through a partnership between ictQATAR and the CERT Coordination Centre of the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute in the United States. The goals of Q-CERT include:

Q-CERT also assists private and public stakeholders in helping secure the country's ICT infrastructure, and undertakes campaigns to educate the public on their statutory rights.

QATAR has made significant progress in developing an e-Government strategy.

This strategy included setting up a single, government-wide portal, and an electronic payment gateway with public key infrastructure (PKI) to ensure security. Online services currently offered include visa applications, driving licenses, payment of traffic fines, delivery and payment of electricity and water bills, employment services, health cards, residence permits and student registration.

The next Generation e-Government program for Qatar builds on the e-Gov unit achievements thus far and takes them to the next level in alignment with the overarching ICT approach for Qatar.  The cornerstones of the next Generation e-Gov strategy are defined to address the development priorities of the ICT vision – and are built on the two imperatives of a customer-focused and government wide approach.  Furthermore, the next generation e-Government program defines initiatives that address areas of action which fall into four main categories: service-related initiatives, IT-related initiatives, legislation-related initiatives and awareness campaigning related initiatives.

ictQATAR is finalizing a comprehensive nation wide strategy for e-Education that aims at enabling the population to use ICT to improve the quality of life and contribute to the socio-economic development of the country. It focuses on universalizing access to ICT and expanding the pool of resources and opportunities while improving the quality of education to nurture a population ready for competing in the information age. The strategy taps on providing services to the education sector per se but extends to the over all community while addressing the governmental needs and partnering with the corporate private sector.

In September 2005, ictQATAR initiated the first of many projects that translate the objective of the e-Education strategy into tangible activities and results. The Knowledge-Net initiative was launched to pilot the dissemination of ICT as a platform for teaching, learning and communication in preparatory and secondary schools, while building the capacity of the teaching body to adopt ICT in their delivery of information. This endeavor, which entails the development and implementation of a Learning Management System in schools, will be rolled out nation wide as of September 2006. It is the first step to the development of the national portal for education that focuses on enhancing student’s skills and awareness in ICT and its application in the knowledge economy, preparing the community for the market demand, and expanding the teaching professionals’ capabilities and resources.

ictQATAR has also embarked on the development of the guidelines for ICT curriculum to be adopted for the K-12 community, while it continuously coordinates the ICT standards and requirements across all educational institutions and ensure integration of ICT in the professional development of the education professionals.

ictQATAR will also promote research and experimentation in the world’s most advanced technologies and will pilot opportunities for students to adopt, for example, tablet PCs and PDAs as the core base of their learning experience wile supporting e-curricula development and infrastructure upgrades.

In line with international trends and best practice, ictQATAR is working with Qatar’s Central Tendering Committee to help introduce a world-class e-Procurement system. Starting with an extensive e-tendering system, the e-Procurement initiative is expected to ensure transparency and efficiency, bringing savings in time and costs for both suppliers and consumers.