Opinions & Interviews

MINSK, 15 May (BelTA) – Digital transformation should affect all the branches of the economy. The statement was made by Belarusian First Deputy Communications and Informatization Minister Dmitry Shedko after the solemn opening ceremony of the TIBO 2018 expo on 15 May, BelTA has learned.

The official explained: “Any digital transformation contains several components, which absolutely everyone has. Infrastructure is the first one. Education is the second one. The ecosystem or the legal environment where they are being implemented and where various technical solutions are being introduced is the third one. Those are conditions for doing business and personal data protection terms.”

Dmitry Shedko said that a lot has been done in Belarus as far as the third component is concerned. In particular, the Digital Economy Development Ordinance has been passed. “From the point of view of this document the most important thing is to put the products made by the Hi-Tech Park into use in conventional branches of the economy. We want digital technologies to go where practical tasks are being handled, where physical manufacturing is present. We want agriculture and the production sector, healthcare and education to embrace digital technologies. The IT industry should not become a little oasis, which lives all on its own and works only with foreign markets. Our job is to make all the branches of the economy, the entire country to embrace digital transformation. Further development of the economy is simply impossible without digital reforms,” stressed the Belarusian first deputy communications and informatization minister.

Speaking about infrastructure creation, the official noted that Belarus develops quite well in this regard. “It is reflected by all the ratings. It is the result of many years of persistent and constant work. Our 32^nd position in the index of development of information and communication technologies is a result of the infrastructure part of our strategy. Bringing broadband access to every populated locality, to every house, and preferably via optic fiber is the main infrastructure task today. We are ahead of the world’s average in this regard. We strongly hope that next year we will finish our program to bring fiber optic to Belarusian homes,” he said.

Speaking about education, Dmitry Shedko noted that it is a very complicated and flexible topic. “Belarus boasts a traditionally strong university education system. We have good math education. But today technological advance encounters new tasks all the time. The education system should very flexibly change its practices to handle these tasks. We are convinced that the state should very tightly cooperate with IT companies in order to avoid personnel shortage in 3-4 years. A joint meeting of representatives of the Communications and Informatization Ministry and the Education Ministry took place a short while ago. We discussed all these matters in detail and sketched out an action plan,” stated the official.

The TIBO expo was opened on 15 May. Taking part in the expo are over 100 companies from 15 countries (Belarus, Azerbaijan, Armenia, the UK, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, the USA, Turkey, Ukraine, and Japan).

The stand IT Country Belarus is the central exposition at the TIBO 2018 expo. It showcases innovative R&D products made by government agencies and Belarusian IT companies, resident companies of the Hi-Tech Park, possible applications for healthcare, education, public security, transportation, and agriculture. There are also national expositions of Kazakhstan (the partner country during this year’s forum) and Azerbaijan, collective stands of the State Science and Technology Committee of Belarus, the Minsk City Executive Committee, and the State Military Industrial Committee of Belarus.

This year’s TIBO features robot technology accomplishments, new mobile communication services and applications, information technologies for the utilities industry, geoinformation and navigation technologies. The organizers focus on supporting startups and popularizing information technologies among young people.