HUMAN capacity building in the ICT sector is essential for developing countries in the effort to further their national ICT strategies for sustainable development and with rapid transformation within the industry, the speed of development and change has a major impact on learning and development needs.

Training and education in both the public and private sectors must adapt to a wide scope of issues ranging from training for government ICT policy makers and regulators as well as professional business-focused curricula for senior ICT executives and managers to specialised training for technical and operational staff.

The Authority for Info-communications Technology Industry for Brunei Darussalam (AITI) hosted a three-day `International Telecommunications Industry Regional Human Capacity Development Forum’, which addressed these issues and is participated by various countries from both the government and private sectors.

In his opening remarks, Pengiran Haji Md Zain, Chief Executive of AITI said, “From a monopolistic environment where telecommunications services were provided by one government department and like so many other countries .also functioning as the regulator, we have corporatised this department, privatised some of the services, created a separate regulator and liberised the market.” From now on, he asked as to whether or not we should adopt a converged regulation and hence converged regulators, brought about by the convergence of technology.

Meanwhile, Sami Al Basheer Al Morshid, ITU’s Director of the Telecommunications Development Bureau, lauded Brunei’s growth in the ICT industry particularly in the mobile sector which achieved over 100 per cent penetration in 2009.

“Brunei is notably listed in the upper group of countries in the ITU’s ICT Development Index, a statistical benchmark we have developed for policy makers to measure the progress of countries in moving towards an
information society,” he stated, placing Brunei at 41 out of the 154 measured countries

The ITU director also emphasised the critical need for governments and the private sectors to develop both general ICT skills to address the rapid growth in the sector.

“A major concern is the digital divide, which remains a major problem for developing countries and could also become a knowledge divide between those who have access to the information and learning tools of the 21″ century and those who do not,” he said.

Recognising this, global leaders at the World summit on the Information Society (WSIS), held in 2003 and 2005, agreed that all the world’s citizens should have the opportunity to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to benefit fully from an emerging Information Society.

“Providing access to new technologies is only one part of the solution — we also need to make extensive efforts in the areas of education, technology know-how, and access to information — all factors in determining sustainable development and national competitiveness in a globalised economy,” he said.

While the challenge of human capacity in developing countries is a formidable one, he asserted that competitive advantage lies mainly in fostering the skills and competencies of people.

“Shortage of internal talent and skills can be an organisation’s greatest challenge,” he said.

Attending the opening of the three-day forum yesterday were the Minister of Communications, Pehin Orang Kaya Seri Kerna Dato Seri Setia Haji Abu Bakar bin Haji Apong, the Acting Permanent Secretary, Haji Mahmud bin Haji Mohd Daud, delegates from the Asia Pacific, and personnel from AM.

The rest ofthe day saw panel discussions on the challenges of human capacity development, trends in the telecommunications and ICT sector, its impact on learning and development as well as human capital development: talent attraction, motivation and retention in a competitive environment.

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