STUDENT & FACULTY DEMAND TOP DRIVER FOR UNIVERSITY IT

By Kelly Ng | 30 January 2012

The new digital generation demands mobility and a seamless learning experience - from the classroom, to the library, and everywhere else on campus.

Fifteen CIOs of Singapore’s leading higher education institutions gathered over breakfast at St Regis Hotel to discuss fresh approaches to campus modernisation. The attendees focused their discussions on the opportunities and benefits of virtualisation and cloud computing technologies for education institutions.

Joining the party was Victoria University Australia to share two recent virtualisation deployments. “We rolled out virtualised desktops which allowed application access anywhere and enhanced collaboration,” said Pro Vice-Chancellor and CIO Professor Peter Creamer. “We also virtualised our servers which resulted in capital savings of A$1.8 million (US$1.9 million).” Victoria University has over 53,000 students and 2607 staff across 11 campuses.

A majority of the CIOs believed mobile-based technologies will have the biggest impact on the future of learning and teaching, and all are looking at virtualisation or cloud implementations.

“Transform IT into an on-demand service should give higher education institutions centralised simplicity, security, complete visibility, optimised delivery and mobility,” said Yaj Malik, Area Vice President ASEAN, Citrix Systems.
While there is cost pressure to deliver more with less, 60 per cent of the attendees identified increasing students’ and faculty’s demand as the top driver for IT initiatives in their institutions. They expected the growth of smart phone use on campus to be highest, followed by tablets and laptops.

“The concept of virtualisation enables access anytime and anywhere to information such as course materials, your personal work and desktop, and supports the notion of seamless learning. There will be challenges in terms of implementation, costs, software license issues, getting the early adopters going, and more,” said Professor Chee Kit Looi, Head, Centre of Excellence for Learning Innovation, National Institute of Education, Singapore.

The breakfast meeting was convened jointly by FutureGov Asia Pacific and Citrix Systems.

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Indonesian Province Launches IT Literacy Programme

By Rahul Joshi | 16 December 2011

Riau provincial government in central Sumatra has initiated a programme to introduce IT to children across its primary schools. It is an extension of a project already in place in other parts of Indonesia since 2008.

The “KidSmart” project, in collaboration with IBM, aims to teach children children essential IT skills through specialised software and custom-designed terminals. In total, 250 primary schools in Indonesia are participating in the programme.
KidSmart also involves training the teachers in using the software and hardware tools, and 300 teachers across Indonesia have been trained so far.
The programme was inaugurated in Riau province at the city of Pekanbaru on the 7th of December, with the Governor of Riau HM Rusli Zainal, Riau Police Chief, Mayor of Pekanbaru Syamsurizal, and President-Director of IBM Indonesia, Suryo Suwignjo, in presence.
“For teachers, mastering the technology is extremely important, so that they can operate it and implement it into their daily lives, and also serve as examples for their students,” said Governor Zainal, as Mayor Syamsurizal inaugurated the cyber-technology training centre for teachers.
The teachers are provided basic knowledge about the internet, word processing, spreadsheets and presentations techniques, and participate in a short workshop on crime prevention.

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Vietnamese City Unveils ICT Transformation Plan

By Rahul Joshi | 21 December 2011

Da Nang, a city of nearly a million residents in central Vietnam, has embarked on a comprehensive modernisation programme that will see it become Vietnam’s first “e-city” by 2020, according to Pham Kim Son, Director of the Danang Department of Information and Communications.

Under a decision made in mid-December, Da Nang city government has resolved to become Vietnam’s first “e-city”, in which ICT will be applied to all major areas of governance including health-care, citizen services and transportation.
According to Vietnam’s Potential Competitiveness Index - Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s overall survey of economic governance among the country’s 63 provinces - Da Nang Province has ranked among the top five since 2008, and is therefore seen as a key base from which to propel the country into a more competitive stratum.
According to the official report, the e-city programme will “be implemented in two phases with six main tasks, including an e-city model and an overall legal frame for such tasks, IT application models among enterprises and the community, and IT infrastructure improvement among others.”
The first phase, the report says, will be undertaken from 2012 to 2015, in which the focus will be on IT infrastructure and human resource development. The second phase, lasting from 2015 to 2020, will concentrate on connecting government agencies together, with the aim to spearhead the economy using IT.
The city has been involved in rapid modernisation this year, with critical infrastructure pertaining to modern e-government models, resource management and allocation, and environmental friendliness already in the works. The city also plans to be one of the “Eco2 Cities”, which conform to sustainability and efficiency standards suggested by the World Bank.

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