COMNET VIET NAM 2005

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COMNET VIET NAM 2005 ICT Trends in Viet Nam and
the World Lars H. Bestle Programme
Specialist Asia-Pacific Development Information
Programme UNDPs Regional Centre in Bangkok Ha
Noi, 14-15 December 2005
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Introduction

• Strong relationship between ICTs and economic
  growth
• Strong relationship between ICTs and
  socio-economic development
• Evolving evidence of a strong relationship
  between ICTs and poverty reduction
• ICTs are increasingly a precondition for taking
  advantage of globalization
• Evidence that ICTs enhances productivity,
  competitiveness and effectiveness of enterprises
  and governments

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Viet Nams Info state
Source Orbicom 2005
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ICT trends

• Out sourcing
• Off shoring
• Open sourcing
• Info-searching
• Info-mobilization
• Convergence
• Desktop Factories
• Wireless Communications
• - Sources Friedman, Thomas (The World is Flat),
  2005

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1 Outsourcing

• Outside subcontractors
• Y2K catalyzed IT outsourcing to India
• Market growing steadily (112 bill. in 2009)
• Increasing a transnational phenomenon

• Increasing potential for Viet Nams software
  sector (helped by overseas Vietnamese)

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2 Off shoring

• Relocation of business processes
• Either production offshoring or services
  offshoring
• Potential in Viet Nam
• Cheap labor
• Need for more IT professionals
• Increasing competition with India

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3 Free and Open Source Software

• Open source communities
• Affordability of software
• Interface between computers and humans
• Increasing importance in developing countries
• Vietnam has a well-developed FOSS policy

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4 Info-searching

• Google
• Yahoo Search
• Wikipedia
• Requires language capabilities
• Knowledge about searching
• In Viet Nam local content development and
  English proficiency is improving

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5 Info-mobilization

• Defining community information needs
• Ignite communities aspirations
• Expand communities social capital
• Embedding community based services within
  existing economic, governance and social
  structures
• Makes applications usable and demand driven

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6 Convergence

• Technological convergence
• Media convergence
• New Communication devices
• Interactive media content from passive to
  active media consumers
• Technology-Broadband-Content
• Implications for legal frameworks and regulatory
  issues
• Future implications for development as
  applications becomes customized

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7 Desktop Factories

• Fab -- from Personal Computers to Personal
  Fabrication
• Inexpensive clusters of tools and software
• To fabricate anything
• A milling machine
• Relay stations
• Decreasing cost

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8 Wireless Communications

• Mobility productivity
• Wireless infrastructure is increasingly
  substituting fixed line
• Mobile telephony is indispensable
• in both the developed and
• the developing world
• Wimax allow for
• last mile connectivity

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• Wireless technologies have a key role to play
  everywhere, but especially in developing
  countries and countries with economies in
  transition.
• With considerable speed and without enormous
  investments, Wi-Fi can facilitate access to
  knowledge and information, for example by making
  use of unlicensed radio spectrum to deliver cheap
  and fast Internet access.
• Indeed, it is precisely in places where no
  infrastructure exists that Wi-Fi can be
  particularly effective, helping countries to
  leapfrog generations of telecommunications
  technology and infrastructure and empower their
  people.
• UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
• The Wireless Internet Opportunity for Developing
  Countries