Moscow, February 26, 2024 - The Euro-Asian IT-forum: Digital sovereignty as a basis for long-term international cooperation was held in Moscow. Forum organizators: the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation and the Federal Government Institution «Government Technologies» (FGI «GovTech») with support of International Media Group «Rossiya Segodnya», VK Tech, ICL Techno and Scientific and Technical Center for Information Technologies "ROSA" (JSC STC IT «ROSA»).
In a welcoming address to the forum participants, Dmitry Chernyshenko, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, noted that Russia is among the top 10 in terms of total supercomputer capacity.
«Leading developers create cross-industry solutions for largest companies, demanded not only inside country, but also in the markets of partner countires. <…> Federal and regional ministries and agencies are systematically transitioning to unified digital platform GovTech. It gives access to applied services — those are best solutions, developed by Russian companies», emphasized the Deputy Prime Minister.
Maksut Shadaev, Head of the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation, has opened the forum.
He spoke about priorities for developing of digital economy on coming years, among which realization of national project «Data Economy», developing of infrastructures and IoT (internet of things), AI (Artificial intelligence), biometrical technologies and also cloud-based digital platforms, cybersecurity and further support of IT-industry.
Government digital systems in Data Economy era
Amandeep Singh Gill, the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology, spoke at the plenary session of forum dedicated to creation of government digital ecosystems in the data economy era. At his video address he noted that technology development has no borders but for the innovations exchange international cooperation is necessary.
With welcome speech also performed the Director of the Department of Transfer of Information of the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology Industry of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Ryang In Ho.
Undersecretary for Communications and Information Technology of Ministry of transport, communications and information Technology of the Sultanate Oman, Ali Al Shidhani, told that 97% of population in Oman have access to 4/5G technologies, the share of digital economy soon will reach 10% of GDP (gross domestic product) and also that Oman is ready to expand the presence of foreign IT companies and is a free tax zone for such representative offices.
President of the Compulsory Health Insurance Foundation, Ilya Balanin, talked about digitalization of Compulsory Health Insurance (OMS). OMS system previously consisted of disparate GIS (government information system), centralized on the GovTech platform. Now system consists of 5 blocks: federal unified register of insured persons, digital medical profile, management services cloud, personalized accounting of medical help and information maintenance service. At present more than 14 mln citizen use only digital medical policy.
The Deputy Minister of Technology and Innovation of Ministry of Communications and Information Technology of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Meysam Abedi, reported about digitalization of public administration and own digital elaborations of Iran. Now Iran is working on development of digital government, AI technologies and digital platforms.
Representative of one of the biggest Russian digital ecosystem, Managing Director of VK Tech, Pavel Gontarev, spoke about main areas of the company’s activities. Among them development of cloud technologies, open-source solutions for use is highly loaded services, machine learning and cybersecurity. He also noted that VK Tech has been developing international cooperation for several years, working with foreign providers.
The Director General of the Executive Committee, Alexey Borodin represented the Regional Commonwealth in the Field of Communications (RCC) at the plenary session. He noted the need for coordination of national efforts in the field of research and implementation of new technologies at the regional level and presentation of common approaches of countries in the global arena, in particular on the ITU platform, and invited countries to cooperate.
The Secretary-General of the Digital Cooperation Organization, Deemah AlYahya also addressed participants of the forum via videoconference call from Saudi Arabia, stressing the need of comprehensive international cooperation to achieve common goals in the area of digital transformation.
Platform solutions
Vasily Slyshkin, Director of FGI «GovTech» has opened round-table discussion for heads of organizations responsible for public sector digitalization. He shared with his colleagues from other countries the successfull experience of launching the GovTech platform and prior goals for nearest time among which the expansion of social mass digital services pool and implementation of data fabric and AI technoogies on the platform, particularly development of voice assistant to optimize citizens’ access to information on public services.
Ruslan Vagizov, CEO of the ICL Services talked about the correct transition to import substituted technologies reducing the risks and costs of training. The company provides services of IT-outsource, automates business processes and does system integration. Among company’s cases — creation of import substituted center in IT for Republic of Tatarstan.
Speech of Oleg Karpitsky, CEO of JSC «STC IT ROSA» was dedicated to experience of transition to domestic software in education area. The company has been engaged in creating domestic technologies since 2010. Developed OS based on ROSA’s platform is used in Moscow schools and company’s own repository is ranked 7-th among world’s repositories.
With their reports also participated representatives from Philippines, Iran, Afghanistan, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
At the panel session «Information security of the state in the digital age» participated experts from Russia, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Azerbaijan and Afghanistan. They shared information about research in the sphere of information security and noted that number of fraudsters and cyber threats are increasing every year, that’s why states need to cooperate to exchange methodologics and experience in government information system security.
Smart cities and personnel for digital public administration
Second day of Euro-Asian IT-forum was devoted to smart cities and personnel training for digital transformation. Youth scientific-practical conference «Building a Digital State: Opportunities and Constraints» was also held in the framework of the forum.
Representatives of Russian digital regions took part at the panel session «Smart cities and regions»: Vice-governor of Saint-Petersburg - Stanislav Kazarin, Deputy governor of Nizhny Novgorod region - Egor Polyakov, Deputy governor of Kaluga region - Dmitry Razumovsky, Adviser to the Head of the Department of Information Technologies of Moscow - Dmitry Ontoev, Deputy Head of the Kazan Executive Committee - Radik Shafigullin and their colleagues from Malaysia, Armenia, Türkiye, Thailand and the UAE (United Arab Emirates).
At the session they discussed innovative technologies of using software robots to solve routine tasks, smart light technologies, parking systems, video surveillance and water treatment, digital twins of cities, getting feedback from residents and more.
In the framework of panel session «Training for digital public administration» representatives from Russia, Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Yemen shared their success in the field of digitalization of education and vision of the further professional development of personnel in conditions of the digital economy. RCC representative gave the information about important directions in improvement of personnel training programms, material and technological equipment of research and educational institutions centers of universities and their interaction with industry partners, that are being addressed within the commonwealth on a regional basis.
Discussion participants noted that fundamental knowledge can’t become obsolete but it’s important to be able to integrate into educational process digital technologies. Many countries participating in the discussion have already introduced online education, cooperation with leading IT companies for further employment of students, created online platforms and digital libraries. The experts shared their experience and expressed their willingness to cooperate.
Youth scientific-practical conference
Youth scientific-practical conference «Building a Digital State: Opportunities and Constraints» was held in the framework of the forum. It was moderated by Anna Abramova, Director of the MGIMO Center for Artifical intelligence, member of the UN Secretary-General’s AI Advisory Body, scientific supervisor of the MGIMO Master’s programme «Artificial Intelligence». Students from Russia, China, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka shared their vision of public sector digitalization and possible risks. The speakers addressed the issues of legal liability for data leakage and tools to motivate IT professionals to combat brain drain. Students proposed digital solutions in the fields of medicine, tourism, municipal management and disaster management.
Also within the framework of the Euro-Asian IT Forum "Digital Sovereignty as a Basis for Long-Term International Cooperation", a memorandum on exchange of experience in the field of digital transformation was signed between FGI «GovTech» and Republican Unitary Enterprise «Digital Development Center» of Belarus.
Representatives of more than 20 countries took part in the forum, including: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Cambodia, Oman, Iran, Turkmenistan, Mongolia, Qatar, Belarus, Armenia, Afghanistan, Philippines, Malaysia, Türkiye, Thailand, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Yemen, Uzbekistan, UAE, China, India, Bahrain, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, as well as representatives of the United Nations, International Telecommunication Union, Digital Cooperation Organization and the RCC uniting the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) member states.
The moderators of the forum were editor-in-chief of TAdviser - Aleksander Levashov, Head of the Digital Solutions Department of the Polylog Agency - Lyudmila Bogatyreva, Director of the Federal State Budgetary Institution «Research and Development Institute «Integral» - Dmitry Reutsky, Development Director of the «Open Solutions» LLC - Irina Muravyeva, Deputy Head of the Working Group of the Ministry of Construction, Housing and Utilities of the Russian Federation for the implementation of the project «Smart City» - Anatoly Kurmanov, Director of the MGIMO Center for Artificial Intelligence, member of the UN Secretary-General’s AI Advisory Body - Anna Abramova.