ITU (International Telecommunication Union), the United Nations’ specialized agency for information and communications technologies, and GISFI (Global ICT Standardization Forum for India) the Indian Standardization body active in the areas of ICT, will hold a joint Workshop on Bridging the Standardization Gap: Sustainable Rural Communications from 17 to 18 December 2012 in Bangalore, India. This event, which will be hosted by GISFI and supported by Huawei India, will be followed by the Eleventh GISFI Standardization Series meetings from 19 to 20 December 2012.
The Bridging Standardization Gap (BSG) programme is a continuation of the ITU’s historic mission and concern about the digital divide and development disparities in information and communication technologies.
Now ITU and GISFI, supported by Huawei, have joined forces to contribute to and influence international ICT standards in the area of sustainable broadband and rural communications.
Malcolm Johnson, Director, Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), ITU said: “ICTs can be a major enabler for socio economic development and enable countries to create opportunities for the masses living in rural areas. The main objective of the event is to discuss the strategies, emerging technologies and ICT standards which could be enablers in bringing telecommunications systems and broadband Internet to rural areas in a sustainable fashion. The event will also consider innovations in the ICT industry which will play a major role in bridging the broadband gap in rural areas”.
Ramjee Prasad, Founding Chairman of GISFI stated: “The Joint ITU-GISFI Workshop is a strong tool to measure the standards gap in the area of sustainable broadband and rural communications and a platform for reaching consensus on how to build standards capacity while overcoming this gap. Major stakeholders will gather for discussions and collaboration on how to develop case studies of national standards capability and guidelines to help establish standardization policies in line with global international standardization”.
