WITFOR: opportunity for Vietnam’s Information Technology

Every two years, WITFOR (World Information Technology Forum) takes place. For its fourth gathering, Vietnam will be the first Asian country to host the event.

Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Hong Minh said that WITFOR is the most prestigious forum o­n information technology and communications and will be attended by around 1,000 delegates from over 70 countries and international organizations. Therefore, this is a good opportunity for Vietnam to learn from management experiences and seek cooperation opportunities to develop, generate investment and take advantage of support from countries and international organizations in the field of information technology and communications.

In addition, Vietnam’s businesses will have opportunities to study, access and have business dealings with partners from foreign ountries in term of information technology. Institutes, universities, pupils and students of Vietnam will have the chance to access research programs from foreign countries.

In previous forums, WITFOR not o­nly focused o­n information technology techniques, but also took the chance to consider the capacity of applying information technology and communications to serve the development of other socio-economic fields such as agriculture, healthcare and education.

Apart from the main agendas, there will be events o­n the sideline in order to strengthen cooperation and attract investment like a connection program and information technology dialogue. Furthermore, this event also attracts the participation of businesses, especially Vietnam’s businesses such as Vietnam Posts and Telecommunication Group (VNPT), Viettel, EVNTelecom, North Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (NASB).

- WITFOR was founded by (International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) in 2003
- The forum gathers governmental agencies, international organizations and professional organizations of UN, associations, IT businesses, universities, institutes and IT students in the world.
- Target of WITFOR is to intensify cooperation and support developing countries to strengthen IT application in socio-economic fields as well as implement action plans of the World Summit o­n the Information Society (WSIS).
- Under the theme of WITFOR 2009 is “Information technology for sustainable development”, experts said that this is a theme suitable with the development trend of IT in Vietnam as well as in the world; promote IT application into socio-economic development.