Session I
Impact of Multinational Presence on the Development of the ICT Sector
This session was moderator by Dr. Sabri Saidam, President Advisor for Telecom, IT and Tech Education and featured Dr. Mashhour Abu Dakka, Minister of Telecommunication and IT. The session highlighted a presentation from the multinational company CISCO presented by Mr. Anthony Vonsee, General Manager for Cisco North Africa & the Levant. Other main speakers included Mr. Ibrahim Barham, CEO Safad, Mr. Maher Hamdan, CEO Paltrade and Ms. Gisel Hiscock, New Business Development team for Google Europe, Middle East and Africa.

The Speakers have made it a point that realistically, Palestine being under the Israeli occupation it will hamper the development of the economy. However, attracting multinational companies such as Microsoft and CISCO to invest in Palestine is a business and an economic decision where Palestine’s government and private sector have to develop its business case.

We heard a formula from the distinguished Speakers that the recipe for developing the business case starts internally. A holistic approach towards developing government regulation such as an independent telecommunication regulator, digital signature, catering for venture capital industry as part of the company registration and investment laws, also regulation for free zone culminating in Technoparks projects should drive an enabling and friendly environment as a first measurement for multinationals to consider investing in Palestine. As a first step to globalizing the ICT sector, the government has to invest in developing the infrastructure such as telecommunication, regulations, physical premises, human capital and in promoting innovation as well as entrepreneurship. continue

Upon invitation by PITA(Palestinian Information Technology Association of Companies) and PICTI (Palestine Information and Communications Technology Incubator) and working with  the U.S.-Palestinian Partnership (UPP), Case Foundation and USAID, Google hosted a GPals day in Ramallah. On March 24th and 25th a Google team from around the world, provided cutting edge skills to more than 300 software developers and entrepreneurs.

The GPals day was spread across two days. The first day focused on pushing the boundaries of web applications using Google developer technologies. The day was also about bringing brilliant developers together to share their own ideas. Whereas day two was focused on a full review of Google product demonstrations for small or medium sized businesses to help spur innovation and entrepreneurship in the region which included a discussion on  how to create Arabic content using online tools, and how to use free Google applications (such as Google Docs) to better manage businesses. continue