Information Program Common Projects

Presentation of the Software Products Developed within the framework of NICTS Project

The presentation of the Software Products was held in Hyatt regency Hotel in February 18th ,2003.These projects have been implemented within the framework of joint Project of UNDP and the Government of Azerbaijan entitled "National information Communication technologies Strategy and its initial implementation"

Mr. Marco Borsotti, UNDP Resident Representative made a speech at the meeting. He emphasized the role of the National ICT strategy, approved by the president of Azerbaijan Mr. Heydar Aliyev, in the development of this sphere. Mr. Borsotti noted, that the technologies are very important means to provide the sustainable development of Azerbaijan. The approved strategy will ensure the existing technologies are duly utilised.

At the speech Mr. Borsotti expressed his gratitude to Ms. Maleika Abbaszade and State Students' Admission Commission for the activities aimed to develop the ICT sphere. He underlined that UNDP will do its best to implement the approved ICT strategy. He expressed the confidence that Azerbaijan will integrate in the global system.

Maleyka Abbaszade, National Coordinator for NICTS Project, informed participants about the decree of the president of Azerbaijan Republic dated from February 17th , 2003, approving the National Information Coomunication Technologies Strategy (2003-2012) for Development. In her opinion all the IT community was involved in the development of National Strategy of Azerbaijan.

In her speech Ms. Abbaszade also mentioned the problems existing in this area. For example, the lack of National web resources. During the monitoring of web pages of the main 29 state institutions it was revealed that 29 of thme possess web resources, 77 % mainly place the statistics and only 23 % receive applications via Internet.

Ms. Maleika Abbaszade also gave the brief information about ICT based financial expenditures of the aforesaid 29 institutions. It was noted that since 1999 33,4 bln AZM was spent on technical supply, 7,7 bln. AZM- program software, 16,7 bln. AZM - utilization cost, 9,3 bln. AZM - ICT staff maintenance, 1,1 bln AZM - Internet connection, 361,1 mln. AZM- ICT staff training. In total, 88,946 bln. AZM was spent on ICT.

Ms. Abbaszade mentioned the products presented will be placed in Internet to be used free of charge. These projects are aimed to enhance national web resources and to utilize internet in education as well what follows from the National Strategy.

Faig Atamov, Project expert, spoke about the national ICT strategy. In his opinion, national Strategy is aimed to assist the democratic development of the country and to ensure the transition to information society. The main objectives of the National strategy are as follows:

• To establish the legislative basis of information society;
• To strengthen the economic, social and intellectual potential of the country, to establish the knowledge and information based competitive economy, to develop information and knowledge market;
• To provide information security of the country;
• To integrate the country into the world electronic information infrastructure;
• To create national programme software and develop ICT production;
• To bridge the "digital divide".

Vafadar Misirov, Head of the "Use of the Azeri alphabet in information space" project (www.unicode.az) , implemented within the framework of NICTS project spoke about steps taken to address the pending problems in this sphere. According to him, in order to address the pending problems the following steps have been taken:

• Software that ensures the use of new Unicode standards of the Azeri alphabet on Windows 9x versions;
• Software that allows users to set up a keyboard layout based on their preferences;
• Software that allows the conversion of texts typed using Azeri fonts compatible with Russian coding and other old fonts into Unicode standards and vice-versa (conversion software).
• New Azeri fonts to be used for design that are compatible with Unicode standards. These fonts are supported in four languages (English, Azeri, Russian and Turkish).

Vafadar Misirov mentioned that new keyboard layouts that take the Azeri alphabet into account will be placed in Internet as well. All the users can utilize the aforesaid software and new keyboard layout on the computers.

Vafadar Misirov also informed the participants about "Polyglot" (www.polyglot.az) Dictionary system, developed within the project. A number of dictionaries are included in this system:

• These are Azeri-English, English-Azeri, Russian-Azeri, English-Russian dictionaries;
• "Schoolchildren Dictionaries" included in the system allows translations from English, German, French into Azeri at the level of school curriculum. In general, Polyglot electronic dictionary system includes over 200,000 words and expressions;
• Polyglot electronic dictionary system also has games to facilitate learning of foreign languages.

Tariyel Badalov, representative of State Students' Admission Commission made a presentation of www.mekteb.edu.az Project. He noted that the major goal of this resource is to disseminate the information through the technologies. This site which is to become an information resource on Azeri schools would include all data on secondary education. The portal's information will be divided into three groups:

• On schools (online news, statistics, photo album, best students, etc/)
• Assistance to schoolchildren (extracurricular teaching materials, announcements about Olympiads, competitions, exhibitions and sport events)
• Information on higher education institutions

It is planned that web sites of all schools of Azerbaijan would be established under the page. The competition for the best web site will be held and awarded. With the goal to facilitate web site creation, similar models will be used.

T.Badalov mentioned that this web site will enable the parents to define the most effective school for their children.

Teymur Mustafayev, head of training courses of SSAC informed about the project to develop online training in Azerbaijan.The Project, entitled "Online Training Courses" (www.elachi.edu.az) is aimed to disseminate distance learning in Azerbaijan. These courses will be very useful not only for the students, but for all those who wish to increase their knowledges in different spheres. Within the framework of this project, two-way communication between student and teacher is established what enables online testing and cross examination. The web page consist of three sections which are "pupil", "enrollee" and "career".

The materials on career development, what include analyses, experts' opinions, psychological tests, will be placed in this site as well.

At the end of this event Maleika Abbaszadeh held a press conference. During the conference she informed about the World Summit on Information Society to be held in Geneva in December 2003. She mentioned that in the framework of the preparation to the Summit, Azerbaijan participated in European and Asian conferences. At the time Azerbaijan is preparing to the Summit at the Governmental level.

M.Abbaszade also informed the media about the working groups' activity, private sector development and other steps taken within the framework of NICTS Project.