Intercomms Issue 16 - Development - WITSA, GPPS 2011: Guadalajara Unbound

Mexico is hosting GPPS 2011, WITSA’s biennial Global Public Policy Summit. Dr. Amado Espinosa, Director General, Centro del Software, updated InterComms on his efforts to bring together world ICT leaders, policy makers and government officials for the events

Amado Espinosa is a respected expert in the field of Medical Informatics with academic, institutional and entrepreneurial antecedents. He is one of few MD who developed a clinic, administrative and technical carrier. After being trained as an anesthesiologist, he got his MBA and his MCS in Mexico and then his PhD in Germany together with the specialty on Medical Informatics (MI).

When he returned to Mexico through the invitation of the Mexican Health Foundation, he founded the Institute for Medical Informatics at the Autonomous University of Guadalajara, the Mexican MI Association, formalized and was the president of the International Medical Informatics Association for Latin America and Caribbean, and organized training programs on MI for healthcare professionals.

Dr. Espinosa has served as a Senior Consultant on the field of MI at leading companies like IBM, HP, Microsoft and Philips. He has attended different working groups at AMIA, IMIA, IMIA LAC, AMIM, GMDS, International Healthcare Telecommunication Organizations, HIMSS, among others.

Dr. Espinosa has been recently appointed as Secretary of IMIA LAC, VP for International Affaires at the Mexican Chamber of ICT Industry (CANIETI), becoming the formal attaché by WITSA and the chairman of the organizing committee of the GPPS 2011 (Global Public Policy Summit) to be held in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Q: What does the GPPS 2011 event mean to Mexico?
A: We are very interested in positioning our country alongside countries that have significant ICT potential possibilities. Our economy will be helped by the development of our own ICT industry which – in order to offer services effectively – has to become more globally competitive in terms of providing ICT to the rest of the world.

In the near future, we really want to become more and more of a global competitor in this area. Our relationship with WITSA is key to that because we understand this alliance has the organisation and capabilities to allow us to show to the rest of the world what we have achieve and how we are working to be successful in providing competitive ICT products and services. We also want to learn from the best practices available through the WITSA network, especially as regards how to deploy ICT most effectively. We seek to learn from initiatives deployed in both the Latin American region and in other counties around the world, particularly in terms of digital agendas and their ability to help fulfil the promise of digital age by making ICT truly pervasive and benefit all segments of society.

Q: What are the areas within ICT that Mexico needs the most help with and what are the areas in which Mexico ICT is a world leader and equal with others?
A: We have a strong focus on healthcare and the agenda for e-health. This is one of the most important topics that we cover. Another focus area relates to school children and their opportunity to take advantage of interactive e-education solutions so that they can discover how to use and take advantage of the opportunities that ICT provide. This will serve as a tool to improve the level of competitiveness in technical systems or learning systems. We want to learn from other countries on how they have implemented their e-government strategies. Mexico IT is also managing all the aspects of cyber security and has built a framework on how to facilitate the best use of the Internet in Mexico.

Q: How will GPPS 2011 help you in those goals?
A: We are trying to take advantage of the relationship with WITSA and we want to have as many people and as many perspectives as possible from the different nations who are attending GPPS 2011. We are targeting more than 50 countries and that will provide us with the kind of relationships for collaborative projects we are looking for in the field of innovation for different applications. We want the closer ties with the rest of the Latin American ICT industry in order to develop a common collaborative project to compete more effectively worldwide. There will be an opportunity for Mexican ICT companies to network with their peers from the entire region. It is a singular opportunity to facilitate cooperation and matchmaking. Of course, we are also looking to meet with other companies and groups from around the world.

Q: What are some of the Global issues covered by GPPS 2011 – why is it important on a global scale?
A: We are actively discussing how to develop and deploy public polices based upon the experiences of and input from delegates. Every region has something to learn from each other and we are also inviting global economic and social development organisations with representatives from the OECD, WTO and ITU also attending GPPS 2011 to further discuss which visions are possible to accomplish and which are not. Then we want to learn how to provide SMEs access to the higher political and industrial levels and we want to provide them with a sense of how they can really develop in this light. A public policy designed to support the integration of ICT into the development processes or how to bridge the Digital Gap by focusing on digital opportunities is important and there is also the opportunity to look ahead and think about what new challenges are likely to emerge in the future.
That all provides a very good ‘globality’ for the event. Globality for me means that it is not for us to answer the global approach. We are bringing the specific experiences from different countries but also the opinions of the multinational institutions responsible for global free trade, the exchange of services and international collaboration in research and development throughout the different parts of the world.

Q: Who are your key attendees to date?
A: We are inviting the ICT companies from most of WITSA’s national ICT member associations. We also have a number of ministers from Africa including Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Ghana. From the Middle East; Iraq and Lebanon are attending and from Latin America we are having a least five ministers attending the meeting. We are also hoping for representation from different countries in Europe. Moreover, we are inviting prominent industry representatives as speakers. Beside this we have WITSA’s affiliated G20 ICT Policy Network on the agenda. Mexico is going to be in the G20 in 2012 and this industry group is seeking to build a new G20i initiative, which will bring together government ICT ministers as well as industry counterparts as part of the formal G20 Ministerial process. As a matter of fact, we hope to have an inaugural G20i meeting in Guadalajara this year in conjunction with GPPS 2011. We are also including the World Bank, NGOs and the UN and the OECD on a panel addressing how ICT can best support the economic development of societies.

For more information visit:
www.witsa.org