Twenty-one senior civil servants and participants from 11 countries converged in Singapore for five days from November 10 to attend the first open-enrolment e-Government Masterplanning and Implementation Programme conducted by the Singapore e-Government Leadership Centre (eGL).

This programme was well received by representatives from various ASEAN countries as well as senior government officials from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jamaica, and Trinidad & Tobago.

Participants at an IDA site visit.

"This is a good opportunity for us to learn more about the success story of Singapore, which has implemented e-Government and is moving on to i-government," said Mr Sairul Rhymin Mohamed, head of the e-Government Technical Authority Body of the Prime Minister’s Office of Brunei Darussalam. He noted that according to United Nations figures, Singapore ranks as amongst the top, if not the best to have successfully implemented e-Government in the world.

Mr Suroto Adi: Provide more opportunity for delegates to learn from each other.

Mr Suroto Adi who is Head Bureau for Informatics Support with the State Secretariat’s Bureau for Informatics Support of Indonesia, agreed. "I came to see how the Singapore Government uses IT to provide information to the public and to the various institutions," he said. "Unlike many other countries, Singapore’s e-Government thrust is to fulfill the needs of its people, and not the other way round. We want to learn from this model."

The Government of Indonesia announced last year that it was embarking on e-Government and Mr Suroto, who is also one of 11 ASEAN e-Government Fellows at the course, said the content was useful in helping his country prepare the strategies, infrastructure and legal framework.

The ASEAN e-Government Fellowship is part of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore’s (IDA) effort to support ASEAN integration. Besides Mr Suroto, there were 10 other participants from Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.

"The ASEAN e-Government Fellowship is part of our contribution and commitment towards the growth of ASEAN, and provides an opportunity for the ASEAN participants to gain deeper insights into the Singapore e-Government model. We believe their participation also contributes greatly to the learning experiences of the other participants in the e-Government Masterplanning and Implementation Programme," said Mr P Ramakrishna, Director of Industry Development Division, IDA.

Ms Ong Lih Ling, Centre Director of the Singapore e-Government Leadership Centre, said the programme had been specifically tailored for senior government executives - leaders and decision-makers who are in the position to make decisions that can influence the successful implementation of e-Government initiatives in their countries. "One of eGL’s main objectives is to impress upon such leaders the important roles that they play, and that leadership is in fact the key critical success factor, and not technology per se," she said.

Trainers for the e-Government programme are drawn from actual practitioners from the government, ICT and legal industry. ‘’Beyond the curriculum, these qualified practitioners speak from experience and have real stories and anecdotes to share that are invaluable to the participants," said Ms Ong.

Mr Somlouay Kittignavong: The presentations provided us with a vision of how we can move forward.

Laos participant Mr Somlouay Kittignavong, Acting Director-General of the National Authority for Science and Technology (NAST) said the course helped paint a vision for e-Government for his country, which is in the first phase of e-Government. "The presentations were very interesting and useful. They provided us with a vision of how we can move forward," he said.

The five-day course covered the following topics: Singapore’s e-Government Journey including the latest e-Government Masterplan (iGov 2010) and ICT masterplan (iN2015); e-Government frameworks and enabling infrastructure; legal framework for e-Government; the role of the Chief Information Officer and driving e-Government implementation.

Besides the classroom sessions, the delegates also had the chance to visit government agencies and to hear from practitioners and the industry on their sharing and insights in the planning, implementing and executing of e-Government initiatives. There was also a networking lunch with the industry to exchange ideas and explore areas of possible collaboration.

"The programme helped me draw from Singapore’s experience what can be applied to Vietnam in the next few years," said Ms Dao Thi Minh, Senior Officer, Deputy Director of Information Infrastructure at the Division of Information Infrastructure, Directorate of IT Application Promotion of Vietnam.

Mr Sairul Rhymin Mohamed: This is a good opportunity for us to learn more about the success story of Singapore.

For Mr Sairul Rhymin, what he found particularly useful was the honest and open way of sharing knowledge. "We do not just receive an overview but there was also discussion on the structure of reporting and the role and strength of the leadership," he said.

But that, he acknowledged, was just a first step. "It provided us with only a helicopter view. Once we understand the top view, there is a need to go down and explore each of the interesting areas," he said.

Future courses, said Mr Suroto from Indonesia, could perhaps provide more opportunity for delegates to learn from each other, as not all countries are as compact as Singapore.

As for Mr Somlouay from Laos, he felt that the course was just too short. "There’s so much to learn," he said.