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| Status of implementation of project activities |
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Within its target area of software technology, UNU-IIST seeks to balance the activities of research, training, and development. It focuses on the needs and opportunities of developing countries. It also balances the need for computing to be seen as a science, and for education in it to be rooted in fundamentals of that science, with the need to work with new and emerging technologies. Projects are chosen both to further the science and to meet the needs of software development in developing countries.
Major themes for projects in 2007 have included:
Projects were conducted in the following areas:
The above projects have been directly funded by UNU-IIST, the European Union, and the Macao Science and Technology Development Fund, with external funding exceeding 300,000 USD per year. Indirect funding via travel support and research collaboration of approximately 100,000 USD has been provided by our research partners in Europe, China, and India.
To strengthen further Electronic Governance-related activities in UNU-IIST, the Center for Electronic Governance was established in January 2007. The aim of the Center is to build capacity and provide know-how and advice in planning, implementing and evaluating programs for e-Governance, working in partnership with governments and universities from developing countries, and with international and UN organizations. To this end, the Center carries out research, dissemination, as well as human, organizational and technical development to connect the theory and practice of Electronic Governance.
Following successful completion of the first phase of the e-Macao Project, the Center continues to provide both high-level advice and technical directions to the Government of Macao SAR on e-Government issues as part of the on-going three-year e-Macao Program. In terms of high-level advice, the Center provides inputs into the policies and strategies for e-Government and the necessary alignment with the Public Sector Reform agenda in Macao SAR. In the area of technical intervention, its contributions include the specification and development of software infrastructure for public services, methodology and toolkit for strategic IT planning for public agencies, and the provision of standards and best practices for e-Government.
The outcomes obtained through various projects run by the Center are being disseminated to developing countries within the framework of the UNeGov.net initiative. The aim of UNeGov.net is to build a global community of practice for e-Governance. In 2007, the Center organized 12 regional and national UNeGov.net events - workshops, schools and conferences in: Colombia, India, Macao, Mongolia, Nepal, North Korea, South Korea, and the USA. Notable among these events were: 1st International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV2007), Macao, attended by 200 participants from government, academia and industry from 50 countries; 9th UNeGov.net Workshop and 6th School in Bogota, Colombia, attended respectively by 250 and 120 participants from Colombian Government; 10th Regional Workshop and 7th Regional School in Incheon, South Korea, attended by 36 participants from 19 Asian countries; 8th UNeGov.net School in Pyongyang, North Korea; 4th International Conference on Distributed Computing and Internet Technologies, Bangalore, India; and an event in UN Headquarters on Building South-South Cooperation for Electronic Governance, New York.
During 2007, the Center continued building partnerships with: governments in developing countries, particularly in Colombia, Mongolia, Nepal and Nigeria; UN organizations such as UNDESA Division for Public Administration and Development Management, UNDP Special Unit on South-South Cooperation, and UNESCAP Asia Pacific Center for ICT for Development; organizations such as the Canada School for Public Service, Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity and Promotion and Open Courseware Consortium; UNU RTC/Ps such as the UNU Center, UNU-ONY, UNU-INWEH and UNU-MERIT; other centers of excellence in e-Governance such as the Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, State University of New York; and private-sector organizations like Microsoft.
Currently external funding for the Center is approximately 500,000 USD per year.
Environmental modelling to support water management has a proven success record but is very expensive. So expensive that it cannot be afforded in most places in developing countries. At the same time watersheds, rivers and lakes are under increasing stress from growing populations, industries, and agriculture which both consume water and pollute water resources. The aim is to create a generic model of water resources together with a decision support system intended for use in developing countries that is cheap to instantiate while being effective in operation. The system will support the modelling of existing situations as well as the generation and comparison of results for possible alternative scenarios. Thus it will support such activities as development planning, the exploration of ways to counteract environmental degradation, and the mitigation of events such as global warming or polluting accidents. The tools will as far as possible be free of charge and open source, and capable of using free data from the internet as well as local data. The prototype tools now exist and are being tested. The project is primarily in collaboration with UNU-INWEH, and combines the expertise of INWEH in water modelling and management with the expertise of IIST in software development. Initial funding was provided by the UNU collaboration fund. We are now seeking external funding.
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 five forms: fellowships at UNU-IIST (19 fellows from 9 countries); joint PhD students with associated universities (2); postdoctoral fellows at UNU-IIST (4); fellowships for computer science lecturers at universities in developing countries to train in developed countries (7 fellows from 5 countries); and schools/courses/workshops in developing countries (19 in 14 countries).
In 2007 we organised, jointly with partners, 14 international scientific meetings and conferences in 7 countries (Macao, China, Nepal, USA, Columbia, South Korea, and India).
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