East New Britain province in Kokopo will facilitate a two days important meeting for the Pacific Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Ministers forum this February 13th to the 14th 2023.
The National Department of ICT, National Information Technology Authority (NICTA), National Broadcasting Operation (NBC) the three agencies under the ministry of ICT are the leading hand in this event plus other agencies in the national government are in the province to meet with the ENB provincial government.
The delegates met at Rapopo Resort today to host, consult and work on resolutions with the ENB provincial government in preparation for the event.
According to the Dupty Secretary ICT and digital government Russel Woruba the team consist of technical officers and policy makers of different agencies are in the province to established contacts, do ground assessment, collect ENB government input and resolutions to formulate the program.
Mr Woruba explained that the purpose of the meeting to initiate logistics and arrangements towards the hosting of the inaugural senior officer’s ICT workshop in the month of February.
He said this is a very important meeting because in the field of ICT the national government passed a ICT road map in 2018 which indicated key elements on how to grow the local economy.
“This has given rise on how we as a country can run as technology in ICT so that we can better serve our people and these has cause some of these challenges for us to have this meeting,” he said.
Mr Woruba said that is why the good minsiter has gone ahead to initiate discussions counter-part ministers in the pacific such as Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu and others for this summit.
He said up to 17 countries in the pacific will be part of this meeting and expect up to 100 senior ICT officers will be in Kokopo for this important meeting. T
he summit in Kokopo purposely to work on resolutions that will be passed to the ICT ministers in the future. The meeting is the key summit where they will align all the ICT agenda for the pacific.
Mr Woruba further stated that many times the government go to international forums but do not have one voice for the pacific and it is very sad that all the good things that the national government want to do in ICT sector such as how to manage social media in Facebook, how to roll out digital services, upgrading mobile and other ICT services all these are common challenges across the pacific.
“We are excited for this event and we thanked the Governor Michael Marum and the ENB provincial administration for welcoming us and for working together to have this meeting,” he added.