Speech of Regional Coordinator Ulli Fuhrke at the occasion of the National Seminar on "IT Education for Government Officials", 22.12.2004 Pnomh Penh

Honorable Vice Prime Minister Sok An,

Mr. Theo Kiddes, Deputy Head of Mission of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany to Cambodia,

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is truly an honor and a pleasure for me to be here in Pnomh Penh today to welcome you, on behalf of InWEnt, Capacity Building International, Germany, to this National Seminar on “IT Education for Government Officials.”

I am glad to see high ranking representatives from key government institutions, from the business world and non-governmental institutions, who will ensure awareness on the highest level and hopefully constructive engagement in this important project we are dealing with today.

Before I dwell on InWEnt`s commitment within the project “IT Education for Government Officials” let me briefly introduce you to the German Development Cooperation set-up and its aims.

Since the year 2000 Cambodia is a priority of German Development Cooperation in Southeast Asia. Germany is one of the main bilateral donors. Aside from the multi-sectoral concern of democracy promotion, German development cooperation focuses in Cambodia on rural development, health and private sector development.

The German Development Cooperation, funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, consists of various closely interlinked pillars, amongst them: GTZ (German Technical Cooperation), KfW (the German Development Bank), the German Development Service (DED) and InWEnt (Capacity Building International). Each of these institutions has its own area of specialisation and thus acts in different ways towards the common goal of fostering development and peace.

The bulk of official Technical Cooperation is implemented by GTZ, which has its own offices in many developing countries, also here in Cambodia. GTZ has a pool of experts, who advise the Cambodian government institutions or implement projects in the above-mentioned fields. At present, GTZ runs approx. 2700 projects in 130 countries with more than 10.000 experts worldwide.

KfW Entwicklungsbank (the German Development Bank) finances investments and project-related services in developing countries, which then support the sustained expansion of the economic and social infrastructure. This includes investments in the economic infrastructure such as transport, energy and communication, as well as in agricultural production. A large part of projects ensure access to social infrastructure such as drinking water, health and education. In Cambodia KfW finances projects in the fields of rural development (road construction, health care) and the promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises.

The German Development Service (DED) places professionally experienced and socially committed specialists at the disposal of developing countries and supports local organizations and self-help initiatives by counselling, financing small programmes and promoting local specialists. Founded in 1963 it has since then sent more than 13 000 development workers abroad. They have committed themselves to improving the living conditions of people in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Almost 1000 development workers are currently working in approximately 40 countries. The DED also runs an office here in Pnomh Penh and projects in Cambodia.

InWEnt – Internationale Weiterbildung und Entwicklung (Capacity Building International, Germany) is synonymous with human resources and organisational development in international cooperation. Our service package addresses specialists, executives and decision-makers in industry, politics, administration and civil society. InWEnt works with partners in developing countries, transition states and industrialised nations, and in this way reaches some 55,000 individuals every year.

To us at InWEnt, in international cooperation, capacity building means human resources and organisational development. We support change processes with a view to boosting efficiency and effectiveness, and encourage reform processes to enhance democracy, prosperity and development.

We do so by providing dialogue, training and consultancy services for specialists and executives. We use a wide range of methods and instruments, which allows us to offer each of our partners a specially customised solution to respond to every challenge - and we focus on practice. The modular structure of our training courses allows us to respond rapidly and effectively to our partners latest requirements and wishes.

Sustainable economic development and global growth presuppose well-trained individuals, competent institutions and common learning processes between industrialized nations, transition states and developing countries. The access to knowledge is increasingly becoming the key to development and growth. Technological know-how, and international leadership skills are key factors in success, be it to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, to shift from a planned economy to a market economy, or to improve the international competitiveness of businesses.

While modern information and communication technologies (ICT) are changing the lives and working worlds of people in industrialized countries at a phenomenal rate, the inhabitants of our partner countries are cut off from many of these change processes.

The international community has set itself the goal of bridging the digital gap between rich and poor countries. Developing countries should no longer be left on the sidelines of the international information society, but should be given access to modern information and communication technology, and play an active part in development and cooperation. This, however, is not only a problem of technical infrastructure, but also a question of competence.

This is where InWEnt steps in. it@inwent is the department within InWEnt that assists in systematically organizing access to knowledge through ICT (information communication technology) as a strategic development. We act on various levels:
· individual, in strengthening action competence
· organizational, in increasing performance capacity of companies, organizations and administrations and
· systemic, in fostering the action and decision-making capacity and responsibility on a political level.

Our partner organizations are economic entities (such as Associations, Chambers or Companies) the Civil Society or State Institutions on national and the decentralized level.

InWEnt works with its partners in concrete programs and dialogue events. We transfer the necessary know-how on modern technologies through seminars, workshops and video-teaching, we lay the foundation for e-learning and we offer scholarships for education in IT-related fields.

We promote the use of open Source based technology, that is low cost or free and can be customized by our partners. In our e-learning projects we make use of CLE. CLE is short for collaborative learning environment. It is a web-based software application that is used for e-collaboration and online learning. The details of CLE will be explained to you later today by a fellow speaker.

One focus of InWEnt is training in the field of e-government, that is in the development and realisation of strategies to use new media in the administration.

In this context we are glad to introduce to you the project “IT Education for Government Officials” here in Cambodia. The project is jointly funded by the German Government through its Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development and InWEnt and NiDA and will run for approx. one year. It aims first and foremost at providing IT training to government officials on the national and provincial levels so they can better serve the Cambodian people. It shall enhance the efficiency, transparency, accessibility and accountability of administrative procedures in the service of the people of Cambodia.

It shall furthermore raise awareness within the government and high level policy makers of the importance of IT education in general and ensure awareness of the availability of the new collaborative learning environment (CLE) and the blended learning products developed by InWEnt. This National Seminar marks the opening of the project, which includes training workshops in 22 provincial administrations in Cambodia.

At this point I would like to thank our fellow organizers, NiDA and Open Forum, who have managed to bring so many key players here today, thus sending a clear and important signal: ICT and Development are closely interlinked. ICT does play an important role for the future development of Cambodia! We from InWEnt are looking forward to a prosperous cooperation with our Cambodian partners and success in reaching our common goal.

Finally, I would like to thank the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. This Ministry has supported the activities of it@inwent with great dedication.

National Seminar on “IT Education for Government Officials” in Cambodia

(Pnomh Penh, 22nd December 2004) In the presence of H.E. Sok An, Deputy Prime Minister of Cambodia, InWEnt (Capacity Building International, Germany), NiDA (National Information Communication Technology Development Authority) and Open Forum of Cambodia today held a National Seminar on “IT Education for Government Officials”.

The National Seminar marks the opening of a project to educate Cambodian Government Officials on IT-related issues. The project is one of its kind to showcase the first ever cooperation between Cambodia and Germany in Information Technology with the cooperation of the non-governmental organization and is jointly funded by the German Government through its Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development and NiDA. This cooperation is to last for one year initially and may continue into the future.

InWEnt – Capacity Building International, Germany is a non-profit organization. On behalf of the German Government its objective is the promotion of personnel development, advanced professional training and dialogue. InWEnt works with partners in developing countries, transition states and industrialised nations, and in this way reaches some 55,000 individuals every year.

The National Information Communications Technology Development Authority (NiDA) of Cambodia is the only government authority in charge of IT promotion and development. As of today, NiDA has conducted several seminars to ensure awareness and the general understanding of the importance of Information Technology. In addition, NiDA has successfully connected the central government and is taking the next step to connect the local government.

Open Forum of Cambodia – OFC – is a non-profit and a local non-governmental organization established in late 1994. The vision of the Open Forum of Cambodia is to provide means and resources for Cambodian citizens to develop their understanding for decision making and to use their experience to contribute to building a stronger civil society in Cambodia. The mission of the organization is to provide Cambodian citizens the possibility of full equal access to information and to foster communication using information communications technology – ICT (between people who living in the city and remote areas), and in particular to promote the use of the Khmer writing in ICT.

The project “IT Education for Government Officials” aims first and foremost at providing IT training to government officials so they can better serve the Cambodian people. It shall furthermore raise awareness within the government and high level policy makers of the importance of IT education in general and ensure awareness of the availability of the new collaborative learning environment (CLE) and the blended learning products developed by InWEnt.

The project includes today’s one day National Seminar in the capital city of Phnom Penh and a series of follow up training workshops at twenty two provincial capitals. Cambodia will require an IT responsive policy for the development of the country and needs awareness and understanding of the importance of IT. This National Seminar should lay the groundwork for IT friendly policy makers.

Provincial workshops will allow this project to network deeper in to the local government. The ability to network deeper in to the local government and to be able to improve public services at the local level will be an ultimate goal of the Royal Government of Cambodia. In addition, the workshop trainees will be a valuable asset for the government in its efforts to implement the current e-government project.

NiDA is leading the implementation of this project in partnership with Open Forum which will, among other things, be responsible for conducting 50% of the training sessions. InWEnt gives strategic support and contributes its blended learning products developed over the years.

The project shall be implemented on a step by step basis and be constantly reviewed to assure its quality and progress. The progress as well as the review shall be made public through the NiDA website (www.nida.gov.kh).

Deputy Prime Minister Sok An was quoted as saying: ”The Royal Government of Cambodia is fully aware of the benefit of IT for the development of the country. We therefore thank our German partners for assisting us with this National Seminar and subsequent provincial workshops which will directly benefit the Cambodian people.”

Mr. Ulli Fuhrke (InWEnt) added: “Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have become the great enabler and a prerequisite for economic and social development. The benefits of having a well-trained pool of government officials should not be underestimated. InWEnt is glad to be able to contribute to this goal with its long-standing experience in human resource development.”

HiPT has appointed Tuson Nguyen (a member of the first A2A) as the Director of HiPT Software Solution Division (HiSS). The division is built as the result of upgrading the former Software Center, a restructuring action of HiPT. Tuson task is in this year to upfold software revenue 10 times compares to last year and construct a strong team which will be able to compete in a challenging market.
Tien Nguyen

Thailands 1st Country Meeting

it@asia Workshop in Hanoi from 22.11.2003-29.11.2003

From 22nd-Nov-2003 to 27th-Nov-2003 the workshop of IT@ASIA under the sponsor of InWEnt was held at NETNAM Corporation in Hanoi the capital city of Vietnam. Around 30 participants from several countries including Germany, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia have participated in this workshop. Those who attended were from InWEnt and it's partners and institutions from IT@ASIA Network such as Open Forum, NiDA, IEM, NEXYS, Department of Export Promotion, Arunsawad Dot Com, Thai Web Freelances, Vietnam Productivity Centre, Mahasarakham University, Asian Institute of Technology, HiPT, Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry and CMC Computer Communication Ltd.

The opening ceremony speeches was made by Mr. Siegfried Karwatski, Senior Project Manager of InWEnt and Mr. Peter Miez Mangold from 21Learnline AG, and also the welcome speeches from Mr. Vu The Binh from NETNAM.

The workshop lasted 6 man-days. Main topics were the introduction of a blended learning product, the Webpublishing System ZMS, the LearnLine Authoring_KIT, Evaluation of the Products by Senoirs Managers, Introduction into possible License agreements for Network products, Decision on business models, the qualification of Productmanager, the future of the IT@ASIA network.

After 6 hard working days, the participants have joined the tour trip to Halong Bay the beautifull place of Vietname.

The workshop has finished at 28th-Nov, and all particpants from each country have returned home carrying of the blended learning product.

Tien Nguyen - (From: www.a-2-a.net; Author: vathana)