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South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC)
RETA 5971: Regional Roundtable on Information and Communications Technology (ICT)

Bangalore, India 28-30 August 2001

Theme 1 - Development of telecommunications infrastructure

• How can developing countries create the right regulatory environment for the telecom industry?
• What are the different models of funding telecom infrastructure in developing countries?
• What are the possible approaches for achieving universal access to communications in the third world context?
• What technologies are relevant to developing countries – fibre optic, DSL, cable, LMDS, satellite?
• What are the implications of broadband wireless technologies for developing countries?

1. Chair: M.S.Verma, Chairperson, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
2. Mr Sunil Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharati Enterprises (to be confirmed)
3. Niraj Gupta, Director, South Asia, FLAG Telecom Asia Limited

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Theme 2 - Public Private Partnership

• What are the various models for public-private cooperation in bridging the digital divide?
• What is the role that the government should play for facilitating the rapid development of the private sector in ICT?
• How can private sector initiative and enterprise be encouraged and channelised for achieving the maximum benefits from ICT?
• How can private sector companies collaborate with each other to achieve win-win situations in the context of ICT?

1. Chair: N.Vittal, Chief Vigilance Commissioner, Government of India
2. Tan Sri Dato Dr. Othman Yeop Abdullah, Executive Chairman, Multimedia Development Corp., Malaysia
3. Nandan Nilakeni, Chairman BATF (Bangalore Agenda Task Force) and President and Chief Operating Officer, Infosys and Ramesh Ramanathan, Member, BATF (Bangalore Agenda Task Force)
4. Vivek Kulkarni, Secretary IT, Government of Karnataka

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Theme 3 - Human Resources Development

Chair: Dr.Raj Reddy, University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA

E-education

• What are the possibilities for enhancing the quality of education using distance-learning methodologies?
• What is the cost effectiveness of using ICT in education in the context of developing countries?
• What are the different approaches for funding e-education?
• What are the changes needed in pedagogy for preparing the next generation for the information age?

1. Gopal Rajagopalan, Managing Director, Schoolnet India
2. Anil Dang, Chairman, Quantum Information Systems Limited

Development of human resources for ICT

• What are the skill shortages likely to occur in the future in both technical and in domain areas?
• What should be done to overcome the problem of skill shortages?
• What are the different ways to addressing the problem of brain drain?

1. Dr. Rama Rao, Vice-Chancellor, University of Hyderabad
2. Prof.S.Sadagopan, Director, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore

E-Health

• What are the possibilities of enhancing the quality of health services by using telemedicine and web-enabled diagnostics?
• What is the cost effectiveness of ICT based technologies in the context of providing public health services?
• What are the funding models for setting up ICT infrastructure for providing better health services in developing countries?
• How can public-private partnerships help in the better delivery of health services using ICT?

1. Dr. C.Dayakar Reddy, Chairman, CDR Hospitals
2. Dr. Sangita Reddy, Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals

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Theme 4 - E-Government

• What are the e-government services that are most relevant for improving peoples’ lives?
• What are the challenges in introducing e-government and what are the strategies that should be adopted, for example, in overcoming vested interests and dealing with surplus staff?
• What are the various funding models that could be adopted for providing government information and services electronically?
• What could be the role of the private sector in the context of e-government?
• What are the approaches in terms of IT architecture and business process re-engineering that could be considered while proceeding towards e-government?

1. Chair: Rajeeva Ratna Shah, Secretary Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India
2. N.Vijayaditya, Director General, National Informatics Centre, Ministry of Information Technology,
3. Randeep Sudan, Special Secretary to the Chief Minister, Government of Andhra Pradesh
4. Aruna Sundarajan, Secretary IT, Government of Kerala

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Theme 5 - ICT in Poverty Reduction:Bridging the Digital Divide

• What are the areas that hold great potential for using ICT for poverty reduction?
• What are the strategies that should be adopted for using ICT for poverty reduction?
• How can the poor be provided access to ICT based information and services and how can they be empowered to use ICT for their benefit?
• What could be the role of community Internet access in poverty reduction and how could such access be funded?
• How can the local community be involved in managing and adopting ICT for poverty reduction?
• What should be done to provide a local language interface as part of ICT strategies aimed at the poor?

Video Presentation:

“Digital Dividends”
Introduction by Penelope Price, ADB Webmaster, Asian Development Bank

1. Chair: M.Govinda Rao, Director, Institute for Social and Economic Change
2. Sudheendra Kulkarni, Director, Communications and Research, Prime Minister’s Office
3. S.Lakshminarayanan, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India
4. Rajesh Rajora, District Collector, Dhar District, Madhya Pradesh

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Theme 6 - Cyber laws

• What are the changes required in the legal framework for encouraging the use of ICT in general and for electronic delivery of information and services in particular?
• What are the approaches that could be adopted to safeguard privacy of citizens and secure their right to information in the context of the pervasive use of ICT?
• What are the best practices that could be adopted for creating a legal environment conducive to the use of ICT in developing countries?

1. Chair: K.N.Gupta, Controller of Certifying Authority
2. Mohan Gopal, Director and Professor of Law, National Law School of India University, Bangalore
3. Pavan Duggal, President ,Cyberlaw Asia

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Theme 7 - Emerging IT opportunities

• What are the opportunities for increasing incomes and employment in developing countries using ICT?
• What are the emerging opportunities in provision of ICT infrastructure and services for businesses?
• What strategies should be adopted to encourage venture capital and provide incubation facilities for nurturing start ups in developing countries?
• What are the key success factors for benefiting from the opportunities in IT enabled services?
• What should be done for moving up the value chain in respect of IT and IT-enabled services?
• What are the lessons to be learnt from failures of companies engaged in ICT?

1. Chair: Azim Premji, Chairman Wipro Technologies
2. Pramath Sinha, McKinsey & Company
3. Prakash Gurbaxani, Chief Executive Officer, 24x7 Customer.com

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