Salem Al Shair, eServices Director, Dubai eGovernment received a Malaysian delegation comprising representatives from the government and IT industry at the Dubai eGovernment stand at GITEX 2006.
The delegation included Sharifa Hind Hussain, Supervisor of MATRADE Dubai Office, the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation, Consulate General of Malaysia, Badlisham Ghazali, chief executive officer, Multimedia Development Corporation, and Niran Noor, Vice President, MDEC.
Salem Al Shair extended a warm welcome to the Malaysian delegation and assured Dubai eGovernment's readiness to exchange experiences with Malaysian counterparts for their national projects.
During their visit, the delegation expressed their appreciation for the leading role played by Dubai eGovernment in furthering eGovernance in the region. They also showed keenness on having an overview by Al Shair on Dubai's experiences and learnings from eGovernance implementation. They also discussed the hurdles, challenges and achievements of Dubai eGovernment, to fully comprehend the various factors that go behind the success of an initiative such as this.
“Dubai eGovernment serves as a link between the various government departments in the emirate and integrates these individually automated departments under the single umbrella of the eGovernment initiative.” said Al Shair.
The Malaysian delegation's mission comes in line with Malaysian efforts to reinforce its Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC Malaysia), the country's most outstanding initiative for global informatin and communication technology (ICT) industry. Conceptualized in 1996, the MSC Malaysia resembles Dubai Internet City (DIC), Dubai's strategic base for ICT companies targeting emerging markets in a vast region extending from the Middle East to the Indian subcontinent, and Africa to the CIS countries.
The Malaysian delegation invited Salem Al Shair to attend and speak at a forthcoming conference in Malaysia to be held early next year.
Government departments in Dubai participated in GITEX under the eGovernment umbrella. Dubai eGovernment highlighted its multi-channel approach at GITEX 2006, which encompasses four broad elements – the web portal, www.dubai.ae; the mobile portal, http://mobile.dubai.ae; mDubai, the SMS communication channel between government departments and their customers, and the bilingual call center AskDubai. Dubai eGovernment used the GITEX platform to create more awareness about the services it offers and to boost the use of electronic services in the emirate.
Dubai eGovernment is a pioneering initiative in the region to provide online services across the spectrum of corporate and community life in the emirate. It also has a vision to integrateindividually automated government departments under the single umbrella of the eGovernment initiative, thus empowering employees across lines of businesses and levels of government, besides facilitating the lives of citizens and customers of the government. Dubai has taken a lead in the region in deploying eGovernment applications and is among the first few governments in the world to provide such integrated services to its citizens. The eGovernment portal (http://mobile.dubai.ae) is a single contact point masking the complexity of the bureaucratic procedures, and guiding access to all services in the easiest possible way. In addition, the eGovernment initiative seeks to improve and enhance procedures by maximizing the benefit from technology, so that users from all walks of life will be able to utilize the portal for their specific needs with considerable ease.
