PROVIDING FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH AND EFFECTIVE
GOVERNMENT SERVICES
Durban, South Africa:Topexecutives,
directors and chairpersons of multi- national companies, government agencies
and departments, are among the delegates who have been invited to participate
in a strategic Executive Leadership Session where dialogueon OpenData will come
under the spotlight.
The Executive Leadership Session is
scheduledto take place on Sunday 25 October 2015 - a day before the 10th GovTech event which starts at the Albert
Luthuli Convention Centre (ICC) in Durban from 26-28 October 2015. Attendance
will be by invitation only.
“The reason for this engagement is to allow for robust engagement from a cross section of leaders from academia, private companies and government
departments,”said State Information Technology Agency (SITA)
CEO Dr Setumo Mohapi.
The topic under discussion will be“Open
Data and Open Partnerships for Responsive Government, Citizen Empowerment and
Economic Growth”.
Dialogue from this session will then
form the basis for further discussion during the plenary sessions of the three
day conference.
In the
April 2014 McKinsey Global Institute Report (Unlocking
innovation and performance with liquid information)it has been pointed out
that open data had the potential not only to transform every sector of the
economy but also to unleash more than $3 trillion in global economic value annually.
Dr Mohapi
explained the critical role Government played in Open Data, referencing the
Mckinsey report. “While businesses and other private organizations can make
more information public, we believe that government has a critical role in
unleashing the economic potential of open data. Sitting at the nexus of key
stakeholders—citizens, businesses, and nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs)—government is ideally positioned to extract value from open data and to
help others do the same.”
Dr Mohapi added the objective of
Sunday’s executive sessionwould be for business leaders and delegates to
realise that much is depended on the type of data made available and how it would
be used.
Data and Information Management practices
were often the best ‘unrealised or untapped’ opportunities to directly address
these high-level challenges, especially when it came to common and shared
services, he added.
With transparency and accountability
being the focal points, Mohapi believed that by sharing and opening data in a
consumable form, this would empower citizens, government officials and industry
players to foster innovation and reform all-inclusive public services.
As South Africa is a founding member of the
Open Government Partnership (OGP) since 2011 and will take over the Chair of
the Partnership later this year, SITA anticipates a huge leap in charting the
way forward.
SITA
is hosting the technology conference, better known as GovTech, now in its tenth
year. The conference is aimed at providing a platform for leading thinkers,
stakeholders and industry representatives to engage.Esteemed speakers such as Michael
Jordaan, Founder of MonteGray Capital and former CEO of First National Bank
(FNB) in South Africa will continue the discussion on Monday 26 October
discussing how Innovation and implementation will lead to delivery. On Tuesday
27 October Stafford Masie will look into the future of Government ICT.
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