Meteor Sdn Bhd (METEOR) and its subsidiary, Open University Malaysia (OUM) recently played host to an International Conference on e-Governance Enhancement via Knowledge Management (EG^M), which was held from 11 -14 September 2006 in Kuala Lumpur. Other co-organisers of the event included Asia IT & C Programme of European Commission (EC), Open University United Kingdom (OUUK), and University of La Rochelle, France. The conference was also supported by media publications, the Education Quarterly (Malaysia) and eGov Magazine (India) as well as The Gurteen Knowledge Website.

The Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, YAB Dato' Sri Mohd Najib Tun Hj Abdul Razak officiated the opening ceremony and delivered the keynote address in which he said, "The discipline of knowledge management is very relevant for a country such as Malaysia as it is in line with our aspiration to transform our economy into a knowledge-based economy as envisaged in Vision 2020. Our commitment towards this direction is strengthened under Malaysia's Ninth Malaysian Plan where efforts will be intensified to raise our human capacity for knowledge and innovation."

The YAB Deputy Prime Minister expressed his hope that EG^M would serve as a launching platform for greater public-private sector collaboration in the field of knowledge management. He noted that the Malaysian Government has always been supportive of the role played by the private sector, especially in new areas of growth such as ICT and urged NGOs to continue innovating and adopting new approaches and mechanisms to enhance public-private sector collaboration. The CEO of METEOR and President/Vice-ChancellorofOUM. YBhg Professor Tan Sri AnuwarAli, in his welcoming remarks emphasised the importance of a reliable and effective e-Government system. He said, "I believe the Knowledge Management (KM) processes, which encompass Knowledge capturing (creation), Knowledge sharing, Knowledge enhancing, and Knowledge preserving must be effectively instituted. The practice of knowledge management where knowledge flows smoothly from a source with knowledge to a destination that needs knowledge will consistently add value to the delivery system in the public service, thus supplementing the matrix of a meaningful development process."

EG2KM relates with the findings of KIWI - Building Innovative Knowledge Management Infrastructure within European Public Administrations, an  IST project. It is a project aimed at developing innovative KM infrastructures for the purpose of transforming public administrations into knowledge-driven and dynamically adaptive learning organisations while empowering public employees to be fully knowledgeable workers. The EU project partners play an important role in transferring their expertise, experience and providing intellectual inputs in the area of KM and e-Governance especially to their Malaysian counterparts via Technical Training Programme, conferences, workshops and working camps.

Ambassador and Head of The European Commission Delegation to Malaysia, HE Thierry Rommel, in his explanation of the role played by EU in EG2KM said. "The EU recognises the importance to establish effective e-Governance as a means towards implementing Information Society services and improving delivery in public service while ICT is a powerful tool for good governance. In promoting investment in development of e-Governance, the cooperation among public administrations, the use of open source software, exchanging e-government best practices between the EU and Asia, building security and trust to respect privacy are all the preconditions to the introduction of e-Governance infrastructure."

The EG2KM international conference comprised of a Business Match-Making session, seminars and workshops. The Business Match-Making session on ICT/Knowledge Management (KM) Products and Services was held for the purpose of trade discussions between ICT/KM Solution Providers with participating government departments and corporate bodies. Whilst the seminars not only provided reference/role model for interested ICT practitioners to implement various innovative knowledge management infrastructure based on case studies from EU and Asia but also an opportunity to develop good networking contacts between European and Asian participants for future collaboration.

A total of 21 distinguished speakers, representing both Europe and Asia were present to share their expertise and experiences at the 2-day conference. Meanwhile, the workshops conducted provided the perfect platform for participants to learn effective knowledge management architecture from the EU Technical Experts. The event attracted more than 200 participants.

The EG^M conference, a non-profit oriented event, was very much focussed on the dissemination of e-Governance and Knowledge Management best practiced in Asia/Malaysia and Europe. It aimed to combine ICT innovation between EU and Malaysia for the purpose of distribution to the Malaysian public sector in line with the agenda of human capital development during the 9th Malaysia Plan. At the end of the event, a specially created EG2KM team hopes to design a strategic software framework on KM to cater to the needs of the public sector. Training sessions on the KM software would follow-suit with invitations extended to relevant government departments.

Source : OUM Open University Malaysia.  September 2006

INDEX : MPT  September 28, 2007 03:49:08 PM