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| Status of implementation of project activities |
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Major projects include the following:
The e-Macao project began in July 2004, and during 2005 has completed a survey of 44 agencies of Macao Government, developed three prototype systems to deliver representative public services online, trained close to 200 government staff in relevant IT development skills, and organized 11 seminars and workshops to raise the level of awareness about Electronic Governance in Macao. More information can be found from the project portal at www.emacao.gov.mo.
UNU-IIST is now looking beyond the e-Macao project to generalize and transfer the insight and experience gained to other parts of the world, particularly to developing countries. Toward this end, UNU-IIST has established the UNeGov.net initiative. The aim of UNeGov.net - Community of Practice for Electronic Governance - is to build a community of practice interested in developing, sharing and applying concrete solutions for Electronic Governance, especially in developing countries. As part of this initiative, five network-building workshops were organized in: Tunis (Tunisia), Bethlehem (Palestine), San Luis (Argentina), Bahia Blanca (Argentina) and Kathmandu (Nepal). More information can be found from the community portal at www.unegov.net.
Open Source Software, such as the Linux operating system and the Apache web server, is rapidly gaining in use and significance. It is of particular relevance to developing countries both in terms of cost and self-determination in the building of a software infrastructure.
(1) Global Desktop Project: UNU-IIST has begun a worldwide effort to improve the usability of the Linux desktop and to increase the number of open source developers in developing countries. Through partnerships with educational institutes, IT vendors, and government agencies, UNU-IIST seeks to transfer open source and distributed development methodology to as wide a group as possible.
The Global Desktop Project will begin in Macao and Southeast China, and grow to include developing countries in Asia, South America, and Africa.
The formal announcement of the Global Desktop Project was made at IT WEEK 2005 in Macao on 17 September, 2005, with fifteen partners from Macao and South China. Major funding for the project is expected initially from the Macao government and international software companies. Red Hat, Intel, IBM, Sun, and others have indicated support. In particular, Intel has now committed 1.5 million US dollars over the next four years, and Red Hat has committed to over one million US dollars of technical assistance. UNU-IIST is currently negotiating expansion of the project to Indonesia, Vietnam, and Brazil.
(2) Open Certification project: A problem with the general adoption of Open Source Software is that of qualification, of ascertaining the quality of such software. UNU-IIST has joined a consortium with a number of European partners, both academic and industrial, and we are seeking funding from the European Union to run a project on this problem. The Global Desktop Project will be the primary case study for the certification project.
The sustainable exploitation of river and lake basins, both the water and the land draining into them, needs decision support systems (DSSs) that are very expensive to create.
UNU-IIST and UNU-INWEH are collaborating to create WaterBase, a generic decision-support tool, with supporting metadata structure. It will be used for educational and management purposes to advance the practice of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in developing countries. The project, begun in August, 2005 and to be completed over 18 months, comprises three elements: 1) development of a demonstrator system as proof of concept; 2) development of a generic metadata formatting system for IWRM information; and 3) creation of a training module in IWRM Informatics for inclusion in the distance education curriculum of UNU-INWEH's Water Virtual Learning Centre.
Funding through the World Bank and other agencies will be sought for continuation of the project.
UNU-IIST has now intensified its research on methods for development of component software systems and embedded systems.
The dominant goal of work in component systems is fast and correct software production to meet the growing demand on quantity and quality of software systems. It is hoped that component-based development methods and tools will lead to a higher degree of automation in the software production process, and a great increase in software productivity, with improvement in quality and reliability of computer systems for safety critical applications.
An embedded system integrates software and hardware, which are jointly and specifically designed to provide given functionalities, which are often critical. Embedded Technologies are widely applied in modern industry, such as avionics, automotive, space, consumer electronics, telecom devices, energy distribution, rail transport and defense. It is anticipated that they will be used in national services, such as e-Health, e-Education and e-Government.
Our efforts in 2005 included:
UNU-IIST's main concern is the development of software technology in developing countries, and it concentrates on capacity building through postgraduate training.
Training takes three forms: fellowships at UNU-IIST (16 fellows from 6 countries started fellowships during 2005), fellowships for computer science lecturers and for PhD students at universities in developing countries (9 fellows from 6 countries), and schools/courses/workshops in developing countries. In 2005, UNU-IIST, together with local partners, organised 15 such events in Argentina, Brazil, Fiji, Indonesia, Jordan, Nepal, Palestine, and Tunisia, and Vietnam.
In 2005 we organised SEFM 2005 jointly with Koblenz University in Germany; the 2nd ICTAC Colloquium jointly with IoIT and UoT-VNU, Hanoi, Vietnam; and the 2nd FACS Workshop in Macao.
Dr. G. M. (Mike) Reed was appointed as the new Director in January of 2005.
UNU-IIST appointed two new post-doctoral fellows during 2005, Dr. Vladimir Mencl (Czech Republic) and Dr. Irshad Kahn (Bangladesh).
Professor He Jifeng retired on 30 November, 2005, and Dr. Bernhard Aichernig has decided to return to his position in Austria at the end of his current appointment in February of 2006. Hence, UNU-IIST expects to recruit two new academic staff in early 2006.
UNU-IIST has also created positions of "Associate Researchers", whereby academic staff at other universities agree to spend one month each year at UNU-IIST for a period of three years. During their annual visit, they agree to offer a course to our fellows and to interact on joint research with the academic staff. In 2005, Dr. Jeff Sanders of Oxford University became our first Associate Researcher. Both Professor Jifeng and Dr. Aichernig have agreed to be Associate Researchers, beginning in 2006.
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