5th e-North East Summit held in Aizawl; Mizoram gets Emerging IT State of the Year

Aizawl: The 5th e-North East Summit was held yesterday in Aizawl. The event was jointly organised by Information Communication Technology (ICT), Department of Mizoram Government, and the North East Development Foundation (NEDF). 

 

The one-day programme was held Aijal Club in which C. Lalhmachhuana, ITS, Secretary ICT Department, delivered welcome address while Dr. Syed S. Kazi, Lead Partner, NEDF delivered key-note address.

The success stories of 51 IT projects by the state governments, organizations, business entities of NE were highlighted and discussed. The Workshop I was guided by C. Lalhmachhuana, Secretary, ICT Department and was moderated by Amitabh Singhal, Board Director, PIR, while Sanjeev Sharma, Jt. Secretary, NETIA and Prof. Basav Roychoudhury, IIM Shillong were Juror Invitees. The Workshop I theme was ‘Digital Innovations For Citizen Services Delivery in North East India’. 21 new IT developments for enhancement for service to the people and for improvement of government administration were shown and discussed during the Workshop.

Workshop II with the theme ‘Digital Innovation in Education, Learning & Healthcare’ was held under the guidance of R. Lalvena, Secretary, School Education Department and was moderated by Shri Rajen Varada, CEO, Open Knowledge Community (OKC), while Debabrata Bhadury, Chief Coordinator, East & North East, NIELIT and Biswajit Hazarika, Chairman, IT, FINER were Juror Invitees. 11 new IT new developments for improvement of education and health were discussed.

Workshop III with its theme ‘Digital Innovations in Livelihood & Enterprise, Commerce & Business, Culture & Heritage, Environment & Tourism, Inclusion, News and Media’ was held under the leadership of Madan Mohan Rao, Board Advisor, DEF, while Mrs. Smita Sahay, Partner, NEDF was Expert Invitee and Mrs. Gayatri Buragohian, Director, FST was Juror Invitee. 17 new IT developments for the subjects mentioned in the theme were demonstrated and discussed in the Workshop.

The 51 IT devices demonstrated during the workshops were all tested, and then divided into different categories. The best in each category were awarded in the programme of ‘5th e-North East Award 2014’ held afternoon at Legislative Assembly, Conference Hall. Mizoram ICT Minister Lal Thanzara, the Chief Guest of the programme, handed over the awards.

AWARDS FOR MIZORAM

There were 8 Nominations from Mizoram, of which the joint project of Regional Transport Office, Mizoram and NIC Mizoram State Unit – ‘Real Time Courtesy & Information SMS Without Using SMS Gateway received the Award in Services Delivery category.

Computerization of Taxes project under Taxation Department; East Lungdar RD Block website; and Mizoweb Livelihood Centre were also awarded under Special Mention category.

Mizoram received the Emerging IT State of the Year Award and also Special Recognition of the Year Award for the Facebook group Special Report.

There were 97 nominations for the Award from which were selected 33 finalists; each of the best project in 8 different categories received the 5th e-North East Award 2014.

Lal Thanzara expressed gratitude to the organisers and remarked that the 5th e-North East Summit 2014 held in Aizawl is a big move for IT and related sectors in Mizoram. He expressed hope the Summit would bring forth a good result in the world of IT and related sectors. He said that Mizoram Government gives importance to IT, adding, the state government is trying to create as many conveniences to the people through the use of IT.

He mentioned that various Mission Mode Project under National e-Governance project like – State Wide Area Network (SWAN), State Data Centre (SDC) ; Common Service Centre (CSC); e-District pilot project in Aizawl; VAT collection system and VAHAN and Sarathi are successfully carried out by the state government.

State Delivery Gateway (SSDG) and State Portal (SP) are also expected to be completed during the present year, ICT Minister mentioned. Mizoram government will do its best for the success of the new central government flagship programme Digital India, the minister said.

 

Further, he added that the state government acknowledged the importance of ‘digital connectivity’ for IT and related fields, and accordingly State Level Committee on Telecommunications has been set up to supervise, vigilate and review the works of the Central government projects in Mizoram like Intra-SDHQ-DGQ OFC project, National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN) and other connectivity projects.

Lal Thanzara also mentioned that Mizoram government and Ministry of DoNER in recently  collaborated with National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), for setting up of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Business Process Management (BPM) in Mizoram. If successful, the same is expected to open up good avenues of economic sources for the youth in the state, the minister said.

The e-North East Summit had been hosted earlier by Assam, Nagaland, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.