November 19, 2012: Habtoor Grand Resort & Spa Hotel - Dubai, UAE. E-Governance has brought the citizens closer to the government. The Government’s business consists of data processing and using information within its own departments for enhanced services, better communication as well as disseminating it in public for the benefit of the citizens.

The advent of ICT has enabled Governments to have citizens participate in governance. Though still evolving in application worldwide , the use of Information Technology in Governance is paying off not just Governments but their citizenry by providing them with ease, transparency, connectivity and visibility.In the light of these facts and following the success of its first edition; The 2nd Annual IT for Government Summit commemnces today at Habtoor Grand Resort & Spa Hotel in Dubai, UAE.

Omer T Syed who is the Manager at Roads and Transport Authority UAE is chairing the summit and delivered the opening remarks. Following the opening speech was a special session and keynote address on ‘An innovative approach to eGovernment transformation' by His Excellency Dr. Ali Mohamed Al Khouri who is the Director General at Emirates Identity Authority. He delivered his speech on global efforts and investments in eGovernment initiatives and challenges in successfully meeting expectations and desired outcomes, an innovative framework to support e-government implementation, developed from a practitioner‘s perspective and based on learning from numerous e-government practices around the globe, developing a top down strategy and leverage technology in order realize its long term goal of e-government transformation and other related topics. His Excellency's presentation was succeeded by Kevin Chan, Centre Director – Middle East at Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA).

He enlightened the attendees on 'The eGovernment experience in Singapore - the eGovernment journey of Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA)'. Attendees had the opportunity to be a part of the panel discussion on 'What does today‘s modern citizenry wantæ' During second half of the summit a case study on UAE Embassies Portal Project: A Unified View by Dr. Saeed Khalfan Al Dhaheri, Advisor to The Minister from Ministry of Foreign Affairs- U.A.E.

The last presentation of the day was delivered by Omar Qatami, Head of Network & Security Division of Dubai Courts on, Challenges and innovations in cloud computing.' On day 2 of the summit participants will hear from Noboru Nakatani, Executive Director at INTERPOL Global Complex for Innovation on 'INTERPOL global complex for innovation and the INTERPOL Digital Crime Centre: Providing global support to build regional capacity. During a pre event interview Mr. Nakatani shared his views on what way the INTERPOL’s Global Complex for Innovation support would and enhance collaboration between Governments and Law Enforcement agencies globallyæ
He commented “The INTERPOL Global Complex for Innovation (IGCI) will become INTERPOL’s centre of excellence for innovation in police cooperation on digital and cybercrime. The fact that INTERPOL is an Organization with 190 member countries will mean that the IGCI’s activities will have a truly global impact. The IGCI will provide digital crime investigative support, in-depth forensic and trend analysis, innovative cybercrime tools and techniques, platforms and opportunities to network and share data, and capacity building and training initiatives. While the principal direct beneficiaries of the Complex’s work will be law enforcement, the activities of the IGCI will ultimately lead to governments, private corporations, and the citizenry being as safe online as they are offline. We will seek to do this in collaboration with stakeholders from across the board, so that law enforcement is provided with all the support that they may need to effectively counter cybercrime, creating an open and secure cyberspace.”

Mr. Nakatani also expressed his views on current platforms for Governments and Law Enforcement agencies around the world to collaborate and drive efforts together in preventing and mitigating common risks and threats they face through cybercrimeæ

He stated “ There are a significant number of initiatives that seek to bring stakeholders together to collaborate and attempt to prevent cybercrime. In the early days, these were predominantly local, say between local and national police, which were later escalated to bilateral initiatives between various countries. Regionally we have seen the ratification of the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime by some 37 signatories and the establishment of the Commonwealth Cybercrime Initiative, and if you look to law enforcement specific initiatives, the European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), which will become operational in Europol in 2013. On the international level is the International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber Threats (IMPACT), which brings together governments, academia and industry experts from 144 countries.”

On the second day of the summit topics covered will be 'Auditing the hacker’s mind: the hacker’s profiling project 2.0' by Raoul Chiesa, Advisor on Cybercrime and Information Warfare from Member- Permanent Stakeholders Group (PSG)-ENISA and Cyber World Coordinator at Italy‘s Ministry of Defence, CASD/OSN WG. Enterprise architecture and enterprise connected view at Dubai Customs by Ahmed Al Madani who is the Director of IT Planning & Enterprise Architecture representing Dubai Customs. The 2nd Annual IT For Government is sponsored by Indra Sistemas and GET Group. This summit is supported by Dubai Customs and Central Informatics & Communications Organization (CICO), Kingdom of Bahrain.