June FIT Meeting of Minds on ICT for Development: roadmap for the interim national plan

FIT Meeting of Minds was held at World Bank PIC, Heritage Plaza, Kamaladi, Kathmandu on June 7, 2007 at 11 am, with 32 participants participating in the discussion forum. The FIT Meeting of Minds is a monthly series of discussion forum on topical subjects focused on information and communication technologies (ICTs) and development with a perspective of our country. This month’s discussion was on “ICT for Development: roadmap for the interim national plan”. Nepal’s tenth five year plan is sunsetting in mid July and an interim three year plan is being drafted at present by the National Planning Commission for the period of 2007-10.  The presentation was focused on the issues the present plan should focus on in terms of the challenges of the rural telecenter movement to take ICT4D movement forward, especially in terms of Content and Services and Capacity Building.  The theme of the discussion was presented by Mrs Geeta Malhotra, Senior program Officer, OneWorld South Asia, New Delhi, India. The discussion was moderated by Mr Allen Bailochan Tuladhar, Chairperson of FIT Nepal. The floor was open for comments, question and clarifications from the audience to ensure the transparency and objectivity in the policy matters and the new cutting edge technologies on ICT introduced to the local market.

The objective of organizing these series of “meeting of minds”  was to ensure a debate of all stakeholders concerned in topical events to ensure that the required advocacy for policy changes are done from the efforts and policy practitioners. The discussion forum was organized by Forum for Information Technology Nepal (FIT Nepal) in partnership with New Business Age, Abhiyaan, Infotiser with the support of  Acme Engineering College, Digdarshan Media, ECR Radio 104.2 MHz, Hamrosamachaar.com, Nagarjuna College of IT, Seagate Institute of Technology and Unlimited.