ICT Will Be Promoted As Business Tool

THE Project Director for Ghana Multimedia Incubator Center (GMIC), Mr. Solomon Asante-Dartey has hinted that GMIC is committed to facilitating development programmes aimed at promoting Information Communication Technology ( ICT ), Entrepreneurship and Business Process Out-sourcing (BPO) skills development to ensure the labour force are equipped with the requisite information technology skills needed to be competitive in the job market.

He noted that "towards the realization of this objective, the center, with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the government, through the Ministry of Communication will aid start -up and young businesses to enable them acquire ground-breaking and innovative ICT ideas to help them mature into viable business ventures through incubation programmes."

He disclosed this at the closing ceremony of a two-week workshop in Accra last Friday organized on ICT capacity building for District Information Officers (DIOs) from each region in the country to enable them acquire requisite skills and knowledge used in gathering, storing and processing of data to enhance prompt dissemination of information.

According to him, the incubator currently houses twelve tenant companies who are undertaking various innovative and technological developments in the areas of artificial intelligence, home automation, vehicle tracking, education, hospital management and online recruitment and entertainment systems among others. He also said two of these companies are currently at the commercial stage doing brisk business on the market.

In his own words, "the center has also conducted a number of successful training sessions for trainees in Call Center Operations, Medical Transcriptions and Data Entry and many of these have been placed in a number of companies, particularly, Rising Data solutions, Exceed and GCNet".

The workshop, organized by the Ministry of Information and National Orientation was supported by UNDP to ensure that these officers are provided with the basic tools needed to promote an efficient and effective information delivery.

Addressing participants, he said the workshop is focusing its attention on capacity building for its staff in ICT to prepare and reorient them in modern ways of information to ensure feedback of government policies in the most timely and accurate possible means, electronically.

He said the workshop is expected to deepen democracy and promote good governance locally so that those in the rural areas can do business directly with their customers in any part of the world without interference from middlemen.

Mr. Solomon who chaired the function said it is thoughtful for the workshop to be organized to recognize the dynamic manner in which the world is being operated and constantly changing technologically.

He said this would serve as a major turning point to share ideas, visions and new strategies to push forward the evolution of change propelled by ICT:

"The BPO training carried out here would be of great benefit to your information officers as Ghana moves deeper into the Information Age. There is a greater need for information officers who can manage huge volumes of data into databases and documents for storage and dissemination."

He encouraged the participants to share and carry out the mandate of disseminating information to the populace more efficiently and advised them not to keep the knowledge they have acquired to themselves.

Yaa Amankwa Koduah, the Project Assistant for ICT development who read the speech on behalf of Mr. Dawuda Toure, a resident representative of UNDP said, ICT is an important ingredient for the realization Ghana's Growth and Poverty reduction strategy II (GPSRII) and this workshop aligns itself with the government policy for Accelerated Development.

She recalled that two months ago, UNDP supported to organize a "Train the Trainer " workshop for DIOs and the benefit had been tremendous to the extent that the beneficiaries of the Train the trainer programme facilitated this second workshop.

She said the workshop has demonstrated a clear paradigm shift from the use of traditional methodologies to the use of ICT for information gathering, multimedia packing and dissemination.

"This initiative of building ICT capacity of information officers would enable them to package and disseminate information as well as complement the services rendered by the Community Information Center (CIC) programme in the remote and underserved communities of the country," she noted.

On his part, a representative of Ghana Investment Fund for Telecommunication (GIFTEL), Mr. Sam Mensah, said GIFTEL facilitates programmes to ensure that content intended in the delivery of information is shared positively.

He encouraged participants to move a step further to broaden their horizons in these areas to enhance power points video shows, recording movies and voices among others.

At the end, participants were issued with certificates to inspire them to participate and explore in other areas of ICT.

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