Founder of In4net Tech Entrepreneur and executive member of Digital ICT Cluster, Priscilla Kevin, said this during a series of presentations done by young Papua New Guinean ICT entrepreneurs at the Institute of National Affairs in Port Moresby yesterday. Kevin, a computer scientist, said Digital ICT Cluster was a registered non-profit organisation that aimed to create platforms for innovative entrepreneurs to emerge.
This is not only from the ICT sector, but also in other sectors of the economy through the use of ICT.
“The problems and issues that we have in the country can be addressed much better and in a more-effective and efficient way through the use of ICT,” Kevin said.
She said ICT was not only about computers, internet, servers and communications, but beyond that.
Kevin said young Papua New Guineans had already tapped into becoming software entrepreneurs by developing programmes
and applications to better solve issues and problems existing in the country.
“We cannot continue to open shops and compete against the Chinese, or looking after chicken and those other traditional stuffs,” she said.
“We need to tap into innovations.
“Our plan in the next five years is to make the Digital ICT Cluster in PNG a Silicon Valley in the Pacific.
“Silicon Valley in the United States is not a place but is a group of innovative ICT entrepreneurs coming together and providing the ICT platform for the global community to use.”
Software engineer and ICT entrepreneur Leonard Wanusiu demonstrated two new software that he had developed through the Education Department.
One of the software applications, ‘My PNG School’, was developed to solve issues concerning inaccurate data of students’ enrolment in schools throughout the country and disbursements of tuition fee free funds every year to schools.
The software also addresses issues concerning teachers’ resumption at work.
Wanusiu said once used by the Education Department, it would see a revolution in the way they managed school enrolments, TFF funds and teachers’ duty resumption issues every year.
He also developed another software application called ‘NASSA’, which will be used to measure the performance of schools throughout the country in real time. The National
Next :