Today, on September 23rd, the National Summit on Information and Communication Technologies, one of the key events of ICT week INFOCOM 2008, started its work in Tashkent.

The Head of Information-analytical department of information systems and telecommunications of Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan Mr. A. Ishankhodjaev, UNDP Resident Representative a.i. in Uzbekistan Mr. Ercan Murat, Deputy of the Committee on information and communication technologies of the Legislative Chamber of Oliy Majlis Mr. A. Djurabaev, Regional Software Sales Representative of IBM, IBM Representative Eastern Europe/Asia, Tashkent Mr. R. Asimov, and Public Sector Leader, Microsoft Central and Eastern Europe Mr. D. Levi addressed the participants with welcoming speeches in the opening ceremony of the Summit.

“Traditional Summit, annually held in the second half of September, creates opportunity to discuss the results of development of ICT sphere during the previous year and to outline the plans for mid-term perspective”, said Deputy General Director, Communication and Information Agency of Uzbekistan n Mr. Asadjon Khodjaev in the opening ceremony of the Summit.

In the opinion of UNDP Resident Representative a.i. in Uzbekistan Mr. Ercan Murat, Summit in recent years has become unique and powerful platform for the discussions of main issues on the development and usage of ICT in different spheres of life in the republic. Foreign delegates of the summit pointed out that present event once again showed will and tendency of most of countries of the world to master and implement into practice newest information technologies as soon as possible.

The National ICT Summit 2008 is organized by Coordination Council for development of computerization and ICT, The Committee on information and communication technologies of Legislative Chamber of Oliy Majlis, Communications and Information Agency of Uzbekistan (UzACI), United Nations Development Programme represented by “Assisting the Government of Uzbekistan in the Formulation and Implementation of ICT for Development Policy” Project (ICTP) and Association of IT Companies and Organizations of Uzbekistan.

About 400 delegates from such countries, as Great Britain, Germany, Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Russia, USA, Japan, and Uzbekistan take part in the work of the Summit. During the plenary session there were presented reports on implementation of the “Programme on Development of Computerization and ICT for 2002-2010”, Principal issues of building a digital heritage of National archive fund of the Republic of Uzbekistan, on experience of the European countries in development of country’s broadband infrastructure and others.

In the second half of the day, Summit continued its work in sections “Policies & Strategies”, “Technologies and infrastructure” and “Applications and solutions”. The following  are some of the issues and tasks discussed during the ICT Summit: “ICT development in banking sector”, “National online legislation database”, “Broadband Penetration in Japan”, “New technology for restoration of existing cable communication lines for provision of broadband subscriber access services” and others.

Based on the results of discussions, the Resolution of the Summit on further development of ICT in Uzbekistan was accepted. As a summary of the event, an interactive CD with all the materials of ICT Summit was prepared and distributed among participants, these materials are also available online at http://summit.ictp.uz