Brunei's Local News - Brudirect.com

Bandar Seri Begawan - The first THiNKBIG National Technology Forum on "Innovation... Embracing New Media" was held yesterday at the Empire Hotel and Country Club with speakers made up of leaders from various areas of the ICT industry from within the country and worldwide.

Organised by iCentre and Asia Inc Forum, the first session of the day saw Edward Orange and David Abberton speak on "Inventing the Future: Global Technology Trends" with a focus on trends in technology and its impact on society, economy and the government.

Abberton, is an Executive Partner in Accenture and is currently Director and Advisor to the Brunei Government and BAG Networks.

Meanwhile, Orange is the Director of Asia Pacific's IBM Software Group and manages the businesses surrounding IBM's Lotus Notes and Domino, Websphere Portal, Sametime and the Lotus Connections products.

In an interview, Orange reiterated his views during the forum in which he addressed the challenges for local SMEs and how to take their innovation and transform it into motivation.

"One of the challenges is going to be around intellectual property. You need a good legal system to ensure that any software that is developed is protected," he pointed out.

Another issue he noted was the need to develop technology to differentiate Brunei. "People have a choice on how to spend their money. You can spend your money on building applications that are commodities today but there is probably no point in coming out with a Brunei version of Wikipedia or Office," he said.

He also advised SMEs on the need of innovation and transforming it into motivation and then protecting the motivation so it produces wealth for the country. This, he said, is done because of the overwhelming need to create new opportunities, jobs and wealth for the people.

In the second session of the day, Pg Dato Paduka Haji Ismail bin Pg Haji Mohamed, Government CIO and Permanent Secretary at the Prime Minister's Office spoke on "Brunei's e-Government: Implementing the National Plan. What does the future hold?", describing the Brunei Government's vision and direction on ICT.

In his address, he noted several shortcomings in the e-Government, citing a 2006 e-Government Implementation Review which listed some of its problems such as an overambitious target, a lack of ICT capacity and a deviation from the original roadmap.

These shortcomings were, however, trumped by figures that showed the success rate of most of the SMEs currently in implementation stages or completed.

The highlight of the event was the luncheon keynote address by the Vice President of eBay, Dan Neary, who spoke on the issue of "Innovative Companies". One of the issues he raised in his address was the potential that exists in Brunei.

"Skype, a company owned by eBay which is one of the leaders in internet communication and one of the fastest growing Internet applications in the world, was actually founded out of Estonia — a very small limited area and has now launched one of the companies that is considered to be the fastest growing application on the internet," revealed the VP, alluding to Brunei's own capabilities in developing their own niche in technological innovations.

He also identified the different current trends of the Internet from the emergence of the Generation Y, the importance of going mobile (broadband phones are growing rapidly) and how people are finding what they need on the Internet.

The luncheon was also attended by Dato Seri Paduka Haji Eusoff Agaki Haji Ismail, Deputy Minister at the Prime Minister's Office.

The fourth and fifth sessions were conducted later that day with Nicholas Aaron Khoo, blogger for CNET Asia, and Chow Yen Lu, Managing Director of WholeTree Ventures, speaking on "Embracing the New Media", as well as Valerio Manca, Ericsson's Sales Development Manager who talked about the future of the Telco.

Entitled "Telecommunications: The Future of the Telco", the last session focused on the key trends in the global telecommunications industry and how these trends can be taken advantage of by the local industry.

Each of the talks was followed by panel discussions which saw the participation of local industry innovators, including Sheikh Abas Sheikh Mohamad, CEO of Syabas Technologies; Haslina Hj Mohd Taib, CEO of BAG Networks, Pg Hj Md Zain Pg Hj Abd Razak, Chief Executive of AiTi; Haji Marsad Haji Ismail, Group COO of DST Group; Hj Shazali Dato Hj Sulaiman, Partner of KPMG Brunei; Izam Ryan Bahrain, Head of Corporate Services for BAG Networks.

Besides highlighting the issues of ICT and the challenges faced by both the public and private sector in the country, the forum served as a platform to bring together leading ICT practitioners worldwide and act as a channel to understand, share and discuss ICT policies and directions from the Brunei public sector. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin