Opinions & Interviews

MINSK, 14 May (BelTA) – The international forum on telecommunications, information and banking technologies TIBO 2018 makes its contribution to the development of Belarus’ IT country concept, Belarus’ Minister of Communication and Informatization Sergei Popkov said at the opening of the 25^th edition of the international forum on telecommunications, information and banking technologies TIBO 2018 on 14 May, BelTA has learned.

“This year’s forum is marking its 25^th anniversary and is held during the period declared by the president and the government of our country as the key moment for the development of digital economy. This includes a widespread use of ICT technologies in all the areas. The TIBO 2018 forum is expected to make its contribution to the development of Belarus’ IT country concept and outline an action plan for comprehensive digital transformation,” the minister said.

According to Sergei Popkov, Belarus has already created basic conditions to address ambitious tasks on developing an IT country, such as a highly-developed information and communication infrastructure. “The work is underway to introduce new standards for cellular and landline communications. New technologies are developed for services of industrial internet, the internet of things, cloud computing technologies, transaction distributed systems and big data systems,” he said.

According to the minister, the country has built powerful data centers to create high-speed corporate networks. “We are building the nation-wide electronic systems, e-health, common educational space, the national paperless trading system, a single identification system of legal entities and individuals, citizen ID card. The country constantly updates the basic elements of e-government. A lot has already been accomplished but much more needs to be done to carry out our ambitious plans,” he said.

Speaking of TIBO, Sergei Popkov noted that the main goal is to demonstrate achievements in robotics, new mobile services and applications, information technology for the urban sector and utilities, geo-information and navigation technologies. The exhibition has brought together more than 100 companies from 15 countries (Belarus, Azerbaijan, Armenia, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, United States, and Japan). Kazakhstan is the partner country this year. A Belarus-Kazakhstan forum will be held as part of TIBO.

TIBO’s central exposition will be IT Country Belarus featuring innovative developments in the field of information technologies of government bodies and Belarusian IT companies, resident companies of the Hi-Tech Park, and their possible applications in healthcare, education, public security, transport, agriculture.

The 25th international forum on information and communication technologies TIBO 2018 opened in Minsk on 14 May. The opening ceremony was hosted by Minsk Arena. At a plenary meeting the heads of government bodies, international organizations, the leading ICT companies have international experience in digital transformation, forecasts and prospects for state-of-the-art technologies.