A Brief Glimpse Of `Brunei Darussalam Information Society: The Strategy Paper'

Bandar Seri Begawan - The National Summit on Information Society (NASIS) commenced yesterday at the international Convention Centre with the launching ceremony officiated by His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam.

A key deliverable of NASIS will be the "Brunei Darussalam Information Society: The Strategy Paper". The purpose of this document is to set the vision and strategy of Brunei Darussalam towards creating an Information Society. This document will be presented and discussed on the final day of NASIS today.

The document sets out core strategies in realising the vision-towards an Information Society in Brunei Darussalam, which includes promoting a competitivedriven environment, encouraging business/private sector investment and participation as well as narrowing the infrastructure gap between the least developed and the most developed areas.

In order to achieve the vision of Brunei Darussalam on the Information Society and towards the fulfillment of Knowledge Economy, the document includes the crucial benchmarking of Brunei Darussalam against other established economies. Given the fact that Brunei Darussalam has achieved more than 50 per cent in terms of mobile phone penetration among its population and that 92 per cent ofschools are connected to the Internet, which is in fact comparable to that of Singapore and Germany, PC penetration in Brunei Darussalam is still relatively low at 7 per cent.

To this regard, the document highlights several focus areas that are crucial in the creation of an Information Society. Among these focus areas are "e-Education" which has been acknowledged to possess boundless opportunities to exploit ICT for a more enriching experience.

E-business will also be emphasised whereby enterprises, both large and small are encouraged to use ICT to foster innovation, realise gains in productivity, reduce transaction costs and benefit from network externalities.

Meanwhile in a bid to further promote the growth of e-society in Brunei, the involvement and participation of all, irrespective of gender or economic status is greatly encouraged.

The discussion on the document will be more focused on the targets set out in the document.

Among the targets to be discussed are the growth of local ICT companies in Brunei, the increase of Internet penetration rate among the population, the number of schools connected to the Internet and the target to have Internet connection in all hospitals and health centres.

Undoubtedly with the commitment, initiative and drive from all the relevant agencies involved, these targets are sustainable and realistic targets to achieve. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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