Welcoming Speeches of World Congress on Information Technology

Currently, it is on the session by Allied Digital Infonet, where they are putting up a very scientific presentation on the details of their revolutionary wireless breakthrough. I won't be covering it much, as it is way beyond my understanding. The presentation was mainly done by 2 scientists from Ukraine (including one of them who spoke in Ukraine).

Looking back at WCIT since morning, the opening ceremony started with the kids saying welcome to all the delegates. Personally, the initiative is fantastic, but again the implementation is quite bad. First, the kids miss the timing, and then the sequence of the kids being lined up was messed up. This is very embarrassing for Malaysia, and in fact, many of us were shaking our heads when we saw this mess up, in front of thousands of top notch people around the world.

Then, it is the welcoming speeches, where this WCIT would cover delegates from 92 countries that cover 90% of ICT economy and is dubbed as Olympics of IT.

One thing very positive is how the screen looks is very professional, where at certain points, it could be 1 screen, then 2 screens, 3,4,5,6 or even 7 screens.

Back to the speech, currently, there are 4 Billion people living in Asia, with 25% share of economy. And the theme of this congress is to enable businesses, empower societies and enrich economies. Hence, the focus would be in IT, gnemomics, climate change, economics and science.

Regarding our Multimedia Super Corridor, there are now 2,000 MSC-status companies with 65,000 knowledge workers, and this is a great breakthrough after we started it 12 years ago.

George C. Newstorm, Chairman of WITSA gave his welcoming speech after MDeC Chairman. He talked about WCIT being held once every 2 years, eg in Taiwan in 2000, Australia 2 years later. Greece in 2004, US in 2006, and now in Kuala Lumpur. For 2010, Amsterdam would be the host and only yesterday, Montreal was selected to be the host for 2012.

Over the past decade, things have transformed. Mobile phones, internet, pc, laptop etc have transformed. Today, a student in remote school in Malaysia could embark on a virtual trip to have a closer look at Pyramid.

He also announced that he is stepping down as WITSA Chairman after 8 years, and he would be replaced by a Malaysian, Dan E Khoo.

Then, it is Prime Minister's speech. He talked about today, the world has changed. It is no longer the adult that led the children, but it is otherwise. He talked on how the kids are now learning better on technology, and even young kids can now know how to use mobile phone, camera etc.

Today, with the unprecendented acess of information, the tough part is to tackle the digital divide issue. The future poor would be those who are digitally illeterate. MSC Malaysia has progressed a lot, with smart school, high tech passport, smart school etc.

The National Broadband Initiative Target is to have 50% broadband penetration by 2010. And just this week, Wireless@KL has been launched to provide free wireless to everyone in KL for 2 years.

In the recent IMD Competitive ranking, Malaysia has improved from 23rd ranking to 19th ranking, being in front of UK and Korea.

MSC Malaysia has brought in RM13.6 Billion turnover last year, with RM0.8 billion being ploughed back for R&D. Prime Minister's hope is for everyone in WCIT to focus on formulating forward-looking impact to cater for the digital divide impact of ICT.

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