Connect Asia-Pacific: Smartly Digital

Connect Asia-Pacific: Smartly Digital

AIBD participated the Connect Asia-Pacific Summit 2013 jointly organised by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and Ministry of Information and Communication Technology of Thailand (MICT). The summit was held in Bangkok, Thailand on 18 November 2013.

The summit brings together more than 500 delegates from ITU Asia-Pacific member states including seven Head of States or Government, thirty ministers and ambassadors, fourteen observers from ITU member states outside the Asia-Pacific region, nineteen international and regional organizations and thirty one private sectors and service providers.

The summit began with the welcome remarks from ITU Secretary-General, Dr Hamadoun Touré, where he highlighted that this Connect Asia-Pacific Summit be remembered for putting a corner-stone to a future in which Information and Communications Technology (ICT) plays a catalytic role not just in accelerating local economies but in meeting key development goals from education to health.

The keynote address was delivered by Ms. Yingluck Shinawatra, Prime Minister of Thailand, where she stated that this Summit will find practical ways to make best use of ICT connectivity to promote inclusive growth and the well being of the peoples of the Asia-Pacific.

The Summit, the fifth in a series of ITU-led Connect Summits, has succeeded in achieving its goal of helping to mobilize the human, financial and technical resources needed to connect the unconnected and to strengthen the role of ICT as the innovative and creative engine, powering economic prosperity, job creation, sustainable development and the empowerment of people in the Asia-Pacific region.

A common vision the Leaders at the Summit aim to foster by 2020 is ‘Smartly DIGITAL” (Digital Inclusive Green Innovative Transformative Affordable Living), where everyone can equally access, use, create and share information and knowledge to empower individuals, communities, industries and countries to achieve sustainable development and ultimate human aspiration of happiness.

In order to achieve the Leaders’ Vision for the Asia-Pacific region the Summit identified following priority areas for action to be carried out in partnership with all relevant stakeholders:

Investing in ICT Infrastructure
Stimulating Innovation and creative use of ICT
Encouraging Innovative public-private partnership
Promoting sustainable development through ICT
Fostering digital Inclusion
Achieving digital literacyand building human and institutional capacity.

The Summit took steps through announcing, signing, awarding and calling partnership projects in such areas as ICT, human capacity building, broadcasting, emergency telecommunication and more through smart partnership among multi-stakeholders in order to realize Smartly DIGITAL Asia-Pacific 2020.

Under the project: Convergence in Digital Broadcasting, AIBD Director Mr. Yang Binyuan addresses the summit. He said that the biggest challenge for the broadcast industry is to develop human resources in new media and new technologies. Hence capacity building is one of the important tasks. AIBD is mandated to assist human resource development in the electronic media. Therefore he requested the delegates, partners of the Summit to join hands with AIBD by extending support for developing human resources in digital technology.

A total of 88 project proposals were submitted and the Summit identified a market opportunity of approximately of 53 billion USD.

All the stakeholders including governments, public and private sectors, civil society, UN system, regional & international organizations and development & funding agencies agreed to work together. The event is recognized as the leading platform for high-level networking, knowledge sharing and strategic debate, essential to drive the success of the global ICT community and address critical world challenges.

AIBD Programme Manager – Broadcast Engineer Mr. Rabi KC also took part in the Summit.