Government held forum sets IT goals in the near future

Prime Minister Sali Berisha called an open forum of exchanging views and proposals with the business community in the field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and representatives of the universities in the framework of government “Digital Albania” initiative. Attending the meeting was Mr. Genc Pollo, Minister of Innovation, Information Technology and Telecommunication and heads of the National Information Society Agency. The meeting focused on the priorities, challenges, projects and the joint action for a rapid development of the ICT in Albania.
The Premier highlighted the results achieved in the past four years in this field like extension of the Internet in every school, digitalization of the civil registry office and of the other administrative procedures, the digitalization map of the country etc. Further on, he emphasized that the objective in these three years is outrunning EU average of IT penetration.
“We are a young nation and nothing can we do more for this country than enhance at the highest speed the information society in Albania”, said the Prime Minister.
PM Berisha proposed the creation of a national forum consisting of representatives of the government, public sector, academic world and business as well as raising of a national fund for the “Digital Albania”. The business community welcomed and supported these proposals and its representatives expressed full support for the government initiatives and projects for development of the information society in the country.
During the meeting, Mr. Pollo also focused on several completed projects or that are under implementation and mentioned extension of the Internet connection in schools- a project already completed since last year- , GOV.net, the governmental network provider and which following Tirana is being extended even in Durr쳬 items of the public access, an important project of the Albanian Post. Our ambition, said Mr. Pollo, is to become a regional ICT center and such a thing can be achieved through developing the human resources, their capacities while we serve in our market and over a wider area.
This was the first meeting with the business community operating in the field of Information Technology and the universities which will be followed up by other meetings so that to establish an even closer cooperation with the government in function of development of information technology in Albania.