Wednesday, 22 June 2005
Today the Information Technologies Development Support Council (ITDSC) has held a meeting at the Office of Government, which was presided at by Prime Minister A. Margaryan, Chairman of the Council.
The Council reviewed the progress in the fulfilment of the assignments given at the previous meeting, the draft program of 2005 ITDSC activities, the Armenian-English translation software developed by ISMA LLC and other issues.
With reference to agenda item 1, Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan reported that the quasi-totality of about a dozen of assignments given at the previous meeting had been complied with. In particular, a draft of the ITDSC 2005 program of activities had been prepared which, having been discussed in the working groups, was put up for this meeting's consideration. In line with a previous assignment, an item was introduced in the meeting agenda concerning the Armenian-English translation software developed by ISMA LLC. In compliance with another assignment, it was reported that a consultative meeting had been held with RA Ministry of Trade and Economic Development as attended by the representatives of the State Statistical Agency, the ITDSC, State Tax Service and Enterprise Incubator Fund having resulted in a number of arrangements upon the organization of planned events. It was decided, in particular, that starting from the second half of 2005, the State Statistical Agency should publish consolidated quarterly statements of IT sector statistics in a separate chapter. The Enterprise Incubator Fund is due to finance activities aimed at improving the methodology for statistics keeping in the field of ITs by the end of 2005. Also, updated and finalized will be the list of the currently operational IT enterprises. In accordance with another assignment, Head of council working group for scientific and educational affairs Mr. Y. Shoukuryan reported that in the framework of the Open Source technology development activities, the Armenian version of the Open Office 1.1 software had been developed and relevant User Manual published in Armenia. According to him, the software could become an alternative to Microsoft Office. The Council approved the working group proposal for holding a separate round table in preparation for the discussion of the above technology introduction modalities and its subsequent development in Armenia due to be held at the CSIT-2005 international symposium to be organized by the National Academy of Sciences on September 19-23, 2005.
The meeting discussed and approved the 2005 ITDSC program of activities. A deadline was set for the finalization of the lists of events planned for the working groups and the program in general.
Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan stressed that the year 2005 will be marked by the the holding of the WSIS II in Tunisia in November 16-18 which is expected to be the launching-point for a shift from development priorities towards practical ones by identifying those areas requiring the best of efforts and capacity input. According to the speaker, the role of governments in the implementation of the forum-set national action plans had been cited as a general strategy line. In this context, government-drafted IT development strategies for the period through to 2008 would be most welcome. Multilateral cooperation and joint endeavors were supposed to help meet the development targets specified in the Millenium Declaration to the benefit of sustainable human development goals. Mr. Armen Grigoryan and President of "IT Fund" NGO Garegin Chougasizyan informed that the Council had already started the preparations for the WSIS II. In particular, an all-Armenian contest for the best electronic contest had been held, referred to as "Mashtotz 1600" and dedicated to the 1600th anniversary of the Mesropian Alphabet. Contest results were summarized on June 11 with the winners to be nominated for the world prize award of electronic contests. It was noted that the contest was going to be held on a yearly basis and would become a traditional event. The Armenian delegation to participate in the Tunisia World Congress was proposed to include Mr. Vahram Nersisyantz, Council secretary Armen Grigoryan, Mr. Garegin Chougasizyan, Chairman of "IT Fund" NGO and coordinator of the task force for donors' and international organizations' affairs, as well as Director General of the Armenian Development Association Mr. Vahagn Movsisyan.
In line with the program of action and in parallel with the preparations for the Tunisia Congress, the ITSC would carry on its operations in 2005, including: identification and removal of the existing barriers on the way to IT expansion, promotion of their inculcation in all of the fields of economic activity, development of a sustainable business-friendly legal framework, public awareness raising as to the possibilities inherent in information technologies etc.
Prof. Edward Manoukyan, Director of ISMA Ltd., presented the current status and problems of translation software development activities in Armenia. He stressed that whereas linguistic communication-related logistical bottlenecks appeared to be a serious impediment to worldwide integration processes, any failure in this area was fraught with danger, including the acceleration of the process of ousting the Armenian language out of electronic traffic against a background of an ever-expanding English. According to him, electronic translation software might be a solution to this problem by ensuring that the Armenian language was kept in use in the form of billions of bytes of translated information. As this mission seemed unfeasable in Armenia through the use of the commercial channels available, the speaker said to be convinced that the State
