DUSHANBE, November 1, 2010, Asia-Plus — Central Asian youth had an opportunity to share their skills and experience at the third regional forum, Digital Youth of Central Asia (DYCA), that took place in Dushanbe from October 29 to October 31, the DYCA forum manager, Ms. Madina Sharipova, said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
According to her, youth forums are one of ways of involving youth in developing Internet and information technologies. “They can share their skills and experiences in using information technologies in their activities at international level,” said Ms. Sharipova, “Internet has become a proving ground for developing various start-up projects of both social and entrepreneurial direction as well as an instrument for exchange of experience.” This has become possible due to widely developed social and blog platforms, search systems and variety choice of web-optimizing tools, she said, noting that youth from neighboring countries are very active in that area.
For his part, the program manager form the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Center, Jabbor Fattoyev, considers that new technologies are being introduced in Tajikistan faster than in other countries of the region, and thereby increasing demand for young and skilled personnel. “Every country realizes significance of intellectual resources and tries to increase them,” said Fattoyev, “That is why Tajikistan has urgent needs in high skilled IT specialists.”
Tajik programmers have created a spelling-checker for the Tajik language and presentation of this system (OpenOffice.org) took place at the forum on October 30.
According to one of authors of the module, Odil Soliyev, who is a teacher at the Khuand branch of Tajik Technical University, the team of developers, led by Academician Zafar Usmonov, intends to lodge an application for grant for improvement of the Tajik language spelling program.
Besides, the third-year student at Tajik Institute of Business and Service, Izzat Murodov, and his supervisor of studies, Rahmatullo Davlatov, made a report, The Role of ICTs in Life of Partially Sighted People, at the forum on October 30. They plan to create a website for blind and partially sighted people. Murodov and Davlatov reported on the functionality of the site, which was still under development.
“Blind and partially sighted people in Tajikistan do not have an opportunity to use Internet and we have decided to help and create the site especially for them,” Murodov said.
According to Davlatov, the site for blind and partially sighted people requires special equipment and technology to hear information. “We are currently seeking financial partners for implementation of such projects,” said he. “We want not only to create the website but also give the blind and partially sighted people an opportunity to operate the special equipment, computer and new technologies.”
On October 31, the forum participants discussed issues related to information security, review of vulnerabilities in the telecommunications sphere of Tajikistan, e-government – computerization of the process of rendering state services, human rights in information-oriented society, major trends in development of blogs and microblogs in Uzbekistan, etc.
The forum was organized by the Center for Information Communication Technologies under financial support of the Tajik Branch of Open Society Institute/Assistance Foundation (OSI/AF-Tajikistan).
The partners in organization of the event were the Ministry of Education of Tajikistan, Independent School of Journalism “Tajikistan – 21st Century,” and the Branch of Moscow State University in Dushanbe. The general partner was closed joint-stock company, TT-Mobile (MLT).
The event took place at the Branch of Moscow State University in Dushanbe and its participants considered issues related to use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) by youth of the region. More than 160 young specialists from Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Iran and the United States took part at the forum. The major of the forum participants were representatives of Tajikistan (more than 130 people).
The main idea of the forum was to gather technically well-educated and active youth, and have them share ideas and experiences, create networks that will put the start for further mutual endeavors.
We will recall that similar forum took place in Dushanbe on December 5-6, 2009.
