Mr Sami Al Basheer Al Morshid, Director of the International Telecommunications Union's (ITU) Telecommunication Development Bureau, said this as senior ICT policy makers and regulators from developing countries gathered in Singapore in July for a five-day executive programme on ICT development.

The programme on "Enabling Frameworks for ICT Development - The Singapore Experience" is being offered by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) in collaboration with the ITU. It gave an opportunity for participants from Asia Pacific, Africa and the Arab states to study and analyse Singapore's model as a means to catalyse ICT progress in their own countries. The thirty-six participants came from such countries as Bhutan, Brunei, Kenya, Kiribati, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.

Amongst the speakers sharing the Singapore experience were Mr Andrew Haire, Deputy-Director General (Telecoms), IDA, who gave participants an overview of the history of telecommunications development and liberalisation in Singapore; Mr Muhd Hanafiah, Director, International, IDA, who spoke on policy and regulatory objectives and considerations; and Ms Audrey Lee, Director, Competition and Market Access, IDA, who provided insights on regulatory principles and processes.

The programme, the first of a series, was held at the Singapore e-Government Leadership Centre at the Institute of Systems Science, National University of Singapore. It is an example of action taken to implement the ITU Regional Initiative on Telecommunication/ICT Policy and Regulatory Cooperation in the Asia Pacific Region, which was adopted by the 4th World Telecommunication Development Conference in Doha, Qatar in 2006. The aim is to train at least 30 participants annually over the next three years.

Deputy Chief Executive and Director-General (Telecoms) of the IDA, Mr Leong Keng Thai, said Singapore had embarked on its ICT journey 25 years earlier, and that ICT had contributed greatly to Singapore becoming the confluence of business and culture today. "We are truly pleased that this successful collaboration with ITU allows us to share the Singapore model with developing countries and facilitate their efforts in harnessing ICT for economic and social growth. We look forward to conducting more of such sessions," he said.

Press Release: Singapore and ITU collaborate on training programme in ICT policy

The Next Gen NBN will be capable of ultra high speeds of symmetric 1Gbps or more, with initial provisioning of 100 Mbps.

IDA has issued a call for an Expressions of Interest (EOI) to gather and assess Retail Service Providers' (RSPs) interest in deploying services on the Next Generation National Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN) and to obtain inputs about feasible Next Gen NBN Services that could be developed.

The Next Gen NBN is one of two components of Singapore's Next Generation National Infocomm Infrastructure (Next Gen NII), the other being the pervasive Wireless Broadband Network. It will be capable of ultra high speeds of symmetric 1Gbps or more, with initial provisioning of 100 Mbps.

According to Mr Khoong Hock Yun, Assistant Chief Executive, Infrastructure Development Group, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, the Next Gen NII will lead to an increase in competition in the broadband market, and to even more competitive prices for consumers. For businesses, more competitive pricing and faster connectivity translates into lower business costs.

The Next Gen NII also opens the door for players from the entire telecommunications value chain (hardware providers, systems solution integrators, vendors, enablers and content players) to participate in Singapore's enlarged broadband market. They can also develop and test-bed new applications and services, with a view to marketing them to the rest of Asia from Singapore, he added.

As an integral part of the Next Gen NII, the Next Gen NBN will entrench Singapore's Infocomm hub status and open doors to new economic opportunities, business growth and social vibrancy for the country. "The strategic outcome of the Next Gen NBN is to provide an enabler to exploit new economic opportunities through a faster and much higher household and business broadband take-up, leading to greater productivity gains and new possibilities for working, living and learning," said Mr Khoong.

The EOI is open to all RSPs. "By registering your company's interest, IDA will be able to provide you with invitations to our Next Gen NBN industry networking events," said Mr Khoong. The list of EOI registrants will be published on the IDA web site to facilitate industry collaboration and networking.

Mr Khoong also pointed out that registration is entirely voluntary and that registration is not a pre-requisite for providing services on the Next Gen NBN. "The EOI does not construe a commitment by either IDA or the registrant to deploy services on the Next Gen NBN," he said.

RSPs are encouraged to register their interest at www.ida.gov.sg/Infrastructure/20070716185100.aspx before 17 September 2007.

18-year-old Lim Jiunn Haur had always been keen on infocomm as a career, and a recent trip to Silicon Valley has helped reaffirm that choice.

Mr Lim was one of 39 students from 18 schools who took part in the study trip to Silicon Valley. The week-long stint, organised by the schools' Infocomm Clubs, included visits to top infocomm companies such as Adobe, Cisco, Google and Oracle, as well as universities such as Stanford University, University of California Berkeley, University of California Los Angeles and the NUS Overseas College. In addition, the students visited the Intel Museum and the Computer History Museum and were introduced to the IT industry's Wall of Fame.

Said Mr Lim, "I had intended to apply for the National Infocomm Scholarship. Not only did the trip reinforce my decision by showing me the numerous opportunities available in the industry, it also highlighted the inner workings of companies and the recent trends in infocomm employment." For the Victoria Junior College student, the visits to tertiary institutions such as the NUS Overseas College and Stanford University also helped him better plan for his future, he said.

Fellow participant William Chandra Kusuma, 16, from St Joseph Institution, also found the study trip very informative and exciting. "We saw for ourselves how this fast-growing industry works," he said.

In a separate trip, another group of students visiting Redmond found that the experience helped dispel some misconceptions surrounding infocomm as a career. "I realised that being in infocomm does not mean you have to be a programmer," said Ms Olivia Chiu, who studies Information Systems Management at the Singapore Management University. "You can do a lot of things. For example, I like marketing and in Microsoft, they offer a lot of such positions as well," added Ms Chiu, whose Redmond trip was part of her prize for winning the reality television game show iWhiz.

The group, which also included winners of the National Infocomm Competition, met with Microsoft's Bill Gates for an exclusive session at the Microsoft campus. Mr Chen Wei Jian from Raffles Institution said the talk by Mr Gates opened his eyes to a side of Microsoft that he had never seen before. "He spoke of how Microsoft revolutionised computing by making the personal computer what it is today," said Mr Chen.

Sponsored by Microsoft Singapore, the trip also included a tour of the Microsoft Home of the Future, the Microsoft Center for Information Work and the Microsoft Museum. For more information on Singapore's infocomm manpower initiatives and programmes, visit talent.singaporeinfocomm.sg.

The centre will equip IT professionals with software quality and testing expertise to meet the demand from strategic industries.

More than 3,000 students and industry professionals will be getting real-world experience in software quality assurance and testing over the next three years, with the launch of the NYP-DSTA Centre for Software Quality and Security in August.

Chief Executive of the Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA), Mr Richard Lim, who mooted the idea for this collaboration, said, "As one of Singapore's key investors in IT, we see an increasing demand to interconnect disparate systems into networked systems. Software safety and quality assurance therefore becomes an important component to help identify potential issues and allow for fine-tuning before implementation. This results in more robust and resilient enterprise solutions."

Mr Lim said the NYP-DSTA initiative was a concerted effort between the public and private sectors to equip IT professionals with adequate software quality and testing expertise to meet the demand from strategic industries such as defence and homeland security.

The Centre, located at Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP), will incorporate software quality assurance and testing methodologies and tap on experts in software quality analysis and expertise from DSTA, who will share their experiences and provide insights into government and commercial companies' software development processes, software testing and applications of software security.

Mr Edward Ho, Deputy Principal for Development, Nanyang Polytechnic, said the collaboration will allow DSTA and NYP to pool resources and jointly develop training programmes for students and IT professionals.

The initiative also involves industry players such as Singapore Computer Systems, Borland, Fortify Software, IBM, McCabe Software, Parasoft Corporation, Systex and SPI Dynamics. Students and IT professionals at the centre will work on projects from the industry, and develop the necessary skills to meet the demanding challenges of developing quality, reliable and secure enterprise solutions. This will, in turn, give commercial companies a wider pool of IT professionals to tap on to enhance the quality and reliability of the software that they develop.

DSTA is at www.dsta.gov.sg and Nanyang Polytechnic is at www.nyp.edu.sg. For more information on infocomm manpower initiatives in Singapore, visit talent.singaporeinfocomm.sg.