NATIONAL 5 (Spotlight Weekly)]

A Good Beginning

By Gaurav Raj Upadhyay

Will technology drive people in 21st century, or will it be people who will drive technology? One of the most asked questions in social gatherings, and yet the answer is not uniform.

In Nepal, where traditionally people are the strength, technology is not anywhere near to taking everything over, as it has in the west. Technological innovations have always taken time to settle down in the Nepali culture. Computers, Internet and related technology are not an exception. Not only Nepal but the entire SAARC region has not been able to use the advancements in technology for creating better lives for its people.

To address all these and other issues, the regional gathering of the government secretaries from the SAARC region, in Kathmandu this past weekend, has signaled towards a good beginning. In the three-day exercise, which had a conference and an exhibition-taking place in a radius of 3 Km inside Kathmandu, people from the region shared ideas and experiences.

The first round saw the IT secretaries of all the seven nations come together to present the country perspective. In the sessions too, papers were presented on diverse topics like e-commerce and IT enabled services; Multilingual computing; Software development and exports; Human resource Development; Media participation in IT; IT policies and legal issues all found a place.

For Nepal, the entire event was definitely a learning opportunity, especially in harnessing the know-how of the more experienced counterparts in neighboring countries. India has already proven itself in the world as a software house, and Nepali business and professionals definitely were able to take home benefits from the gathering.

More so in the context of Multilingual computing, where the presentation by CDAC, India on the effect of local language computing amongst the masses was the highlight. The single most effective way of taking the technology to the masses, is, and has always been making the people understand it - in their own language.

The event that was hosted by the Ministry of Science and Technology, was the first of its kind by the ministry in Nepal. Minister of Science and Technology, Surendra Chawdhary as he mentioned in the opening ceremony, is serious about bringing out the IT bill in the next session of parliament. The public and the industry can sincerely expect that the reflections of the SummIT 2000 will be in the Nepali IT bill too.

Upadhyay writes on IT issues.