ICT Training, Thailand, Asia-Pacific: The Royal Thai Government has concluded an agreement with ITU to lead the Business Management Training Programme within the Asia Pacific Centre of Excellence (ASP CoE) Network. All five of the nodes of ITU’s Asia-Pacific Centre of Excellence Network are now established.

With the signing of this agreement, the CoE programme has now successfully established all five Nodes in the Asia Pacific region, as envisaged at a meeting in Bangkok last October. The other functioning nodes in the region are located in the Islamic Republic of Iran (for Spectrum Management), Malaysia (Rural ICT Development), Pakistan (Policy and Regulation) and Republic of Korea (Technology Awareness).

Under the agreement, the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology of Thailand will provide the space, facilities and resources as well as key experts for the training programme. The curriculum, which will focus on various business and financial aspects of telecommunication/ICT in the Asia-Pacific region, will be jointly developed with CoE partners. ITU will provide seed funds for the hiring of experts and their travel for a period of 18 months and will monitor and evaluate the programme upon its completion.

The agreement was signed on September 6, 2007 by Mr Sue Lo-Utai, Acting Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information and Communication Technology of Thailand, and Sami Al-Basheer Al-Morshid, Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau, in the presence of HE Sihasak Phuangketkeow, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Thailand to the United Nations Office as well as other International Organisations in Geneva, and ITU Secretary-General, Dr Hamadoun I Touré.

The overall aim of the Asia and Pacific CoE project is to build a self-sufficient and sustainable mechanism in the region to strengthen ICT capacity through Human Resources Development. The first training programme by this node is expected to be launched in November 2007.

more info: www.itu.int