Malaysia at Forefront of ICT with Key International Positions and Awards

Kuala Lumpur, 27 November 2006 – Five recent appointments and a prestigious gold award on the international scene have reinforced Malaysia’s position as a global leader in the ICT sector. In the last quarter alone, Malaysia has secured two important re-elections and two pivotal new appointments at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT) and ASEAN. Malaysia won the 2006 International Innovations Gold Award by the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management (CAPAM) for Malaysia’s home-grown eBario project which was acknowledged to have demonstrated a people-centered approach in providing ICTs to an isolated rural community in Bario, Sarawak. The award was presented during the CAPAM 2006 Biennial Conference held on 21-25 October 2006 in Sydney, Australia. In addition to the CAPAM Gold Award, the only other Malaysian project entered for these awards, the Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications’ Project Internet Desa: Bridging the Digital Divide, also made it to the list of finalists of 112 submissions from countries world wide. “We are very encouraged by the support and acknowledgement received from our peers and counterparts at both global and regional levels, which is testimony to our commitment to ICT and reaffirms our position as a leader in this field,” said YB Dato’ Sri Dr Lim Keng Yaik, Minister of Energy, Water and Communications. Malaysia scored a first at the recently concluded ITU Plenipotentiary Conference held in Antalya, Turkey from 6 – 24 November 2006 where Malaysia was re-elected to the ITU Council, marking its third consecutive terms. For the first time, Malaysia was elected to the ITU Radio Regulations Board (RRB), through Malaysia’s candidate Dr. Ali R. Ebadi, Vice President of Engineering and Operations, MEASAT Satellite Systems Sdn. Bhd. The elections concluded with Malaysia scoring the fifth highest votes for the re-election to the ITU Council and the highest votes for the RRB in ITU’s administrative Region E (Asia and Australasia). The appointment of RRB members will take effect on 1 January 2007 for a four-year term. Meanwhile, Malaysia was also elected to chair the Standing Committee on Management in the Council for a 2-year term in managing the financial and staff matters of ITU. The ITU comprises 191 Member States with an elected 46-Member Council and 12-Member RRB. “I am also pleased to announce that Malaysia has been appointed as the founding Director of the ASEAN ICT Centre at the 6th ASEAN Telecommunications and IT Ministers Meeting (TELMIN) which was held in Brunei Darussalam from 18 – 20 September 2006,” added Dato’ Sri Dr. Lim Keng Yaik. “This is a significant milestone for ASEAN and signals the start of a new period of development in ICT across the Southeast Asian region. We are very honoured by the trust placed in us by our ASEAN friends and will ensure that the Centre gets off to a good start under Malaysia’s lead.” MCMC’s Head of International Affairs, Puan Nur Sulyna Abdullah, has been appointed by the Minister to the position of Director for the ASEAN ICT Centre (AICTC). Puan Sulyna’s two-year team will take effect in the first quarter of 2007. The AICTC is a joint-initiative by ASEAN countries that will manage and administer ASEAN’s ICT Work Programme. Indonesia and Vietnam are expected to announce their nominees to the posts of the two Deputy Directors for the AICTC by the end of this year. In a related event, ITU has appointed Malaysia to host their Asia-Pacific Centre of Excellence (COE) for Rural ICT Development at the Universiti Utara Malaysia. It is expected that the COE, targeted to start in the second quarter of 2007, will run courses on rural technologies, applications, policy and regulation. The COE is a flagship program of the Bureau of Telecommunications Development of ITU to build regional mechanism to strengthen capacity with focus on capacity building, human resource development and poverty eradication. In another significant appointment, Encik Bistamam Siru Abdul Rahman, International Affairs Advisor to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Communications (MCMC), was re-elected as the Chairman of the Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT) Management Committee. This will be Encik Bistamam’s second two-year term at the helm of the APT which is an inter-governmental organisation established by UNESCAP and the ITU, comprising 33 countries in the Asia Pacific region. “Rest assured that I will personally see to it that our appointed officials will give their full commitment to discharging Malaysia’s responsibilities in as fair and transparent a manner as possible to honour the trust placed in us by other countries,” concluded Dato’ Sri Dr. Lim Keng Yaik