ICT4D and Sikkim

Post 2001

Social Issues

•Digital divide Digital divide

• education,education,

• knowledge,knowledge,

• health,health,

• communication,communication,

• job opportunities,job opportunities,

• business,business,

• cultural invasioncultural invasion

• economic divideeconomic divide

Issues in ICT Induction       

• Change Management IssuesChange Management Issues • Technology Issues Technology Issues • Process re-engineering Issues Process re-engineering Issues • Knowledge Gap Issues Knowledge Gap Issues • Prevailing laws Prevailing laws • Funding for ICT Funding for ICT • Trained manpowerTrained manpower

• Change Management Issues

Ingredients Required for Change 

Force / Motivation / Cause for change

  Awareness / Education in all Sectors to utilize IT

 Participation by one and all (movement)

  Information Infrastructure

Technology.

Cause of Change

Inability to handle ever-increasing volume of work due to Inability to handle ever-increasing volume of work due to factors like population growth factors like population growth

Minimize corruption by making processes transparent Minimize corruption by making processes transparent

To reduce the Government control and improve citizens' To reduce the Government control and improve citizens' servicesservices

To bring in higher individual and organizational ProductivityTo bring in higher individual and organizational Productivity

•Technology Issues

Awareness about Technology

Access to Technology Information

Availability of Technology

Research and Development and localization

•Process re-engineering IssuesA technology that totally transforms a service or production process.

- Automating the existing manual process is easy,as it does not need major retraining and management can see the results.

- Radical changes preferred for ICT induction in existing process, though associated change in work culture is slow and uncertain

- It is also difficult for the managers to visualize the expected outcome.

-ICT induction and process change done in stages to ensure good results and absorption

•Funding for ICT

- Central Government has initiated negp to ensure proper ICT infrastructure is in place: SWAN, SDC, CSC and others

-Citizen funding model for services is still not mature

- Private investment- a good possibility but needs reforms and change of mindset

•Trained Manpower

-Absence of Consulting skills

-Absence of ICT skills in public servants

-Lack of local ICT manpower in industry

-Absence of training infrastructure

Policy Elements

• Infrastructure Issues

• Development of skills

• Citizen Services Issues

• Business Issues

•        Content Issues

•        Security Issues

•         Legal Issues

•         Institutional development and coordination

• Domestic Demand for ICT

Infrastructure Issues

- Infrastructure development (poor telecom, power) 

- Interoperation of information systems

- Cost effective service delivery, purchasing power, communication, etc.

- Secure transactions for electronic commerce

- Development of technological standards

Content Issues

- Absence of local contents

- Support of local Language issues

- Inadequate back-end automation to give relevant information and e - readiness

- Absence of information sharing practices ( transparency )

Food for thought

- Are my people prepared for the change ?- Where do I realistically feel my state will go in short term ? - What needs to be done to speed up the change ? -Based on my state’ strengths/weakness what can we plan for long term ?- Lessons from success and failures in my state and from outside ?

Food for thought

-Am I able to assess barriers in different facets of ICT4D and prioritize them?

-How do I go about it?

-Do I have some expertise locally?

-Does my government give priority to overcome these barriers?

-Where do I get funds from?

Food for thought

-

- Do we genuinely believe that ICT can trigger the desired development in the society

- Acceptance of ICT is driven by conviction or fear of being left behind

- What can convince us

- What can we contribute in ICT4D

- What and how do we prepare

- Do we need to develop regional cooopration

Thank You