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Dubai eGovt unveils new initiatives

DUBAI - Dubai eGovernment yesterday announced the launch of a host of innovative new channels, services and initiatives to complement the portfolio of 600 online services currently offered on its portal www.dubai.ae. The launch was part of a strategy to accelerate the momentum towards electronic services on the eve of Dubai eGovernment's second anniversary, which falls on October 19.

The new offerings, announced at a pre-Gitex Press conference, include mDubai, a new channel that has been developed to deliver messages through mobile phones and PDAs; e4all, a community IT literacy solution; eLibrary, the online library service; eJob, the online recruiting service; and AskDubai, the state-of-the-art contact centre.

"It is a matter of pride for Dubai eGovernment to go beyond the goal of offering online services, by adding a host of advanced and forward-looking initiatives on the eve of our second anniversary," said Salem Al Shair, Director eServices, Dubai eGovernment. "These new strategies will considerably boost our capabilities to deliver eServices to the community and businesses and take us closer to the goal of providing over 70 per cent of public services online by the year 2005."

"Gitex Dubai presents us with an invaluable opportunity to showcase these unique initiatives aimed at enhancing the people's and government department's readiness for e-governance as well as expanding the channels for interactive communication between departments and customers through new channels," Al Shair said. "Visitors at Gitex will be encouraged to try out the different services under the guidance of experts from the respective departments, as well as staff from Dubai eGovernment."

The capabilities of m-Dubai will be demonstrated by several government departments at Gitex Dubai 2003. mDubai allows the departments to deliver short message service (SMS) messages to their database of customers using the Dubai eGovernment messaging gateway through the dedicated portal www.mdubai.ae. Dubai eGovernment's target is to have 12 departments sending nearly half a million SMS messages to their customers in the first phase of the project.

"mDubai is an example of how Dubai eGovernment is launching new channels to allow delivery of information anytime, anywhere and while on the move," said Khalifa Al Khalafi, director general of the Land Department. mDubai provides a unified structure for mobile services via the Dubai eGovernment infrastructure. It allows government departments to utilise SMS for sending notifications to a database of subscribers through SMS gateway located in Dubai eGovernment infrastructure. eLearn will act as a catalyst in helping Dubai eGovernment reach its goal in providing e-literacy to the public. Fahed Al Othman, managing director, Humansoft, said: " The visionary outlook and the steps taken by Dubai eGovernment have enhanced our position as a leading institution providing online courses. Our partnership with Thomson NETg has enabled us to offer to the public over three thousand English and Arabic online training programmes".

eJob is a unified platform for job-seekers and recruiters. The Dubai eGovernment stand will demonstrate how job-seekers can post their CVs and track their status, while the government departments can view all the CVs posted on the portal and recruit directly from the shared database. eJob enables job-seekers to register online, giving them an opportunity of having their CVs accessed by various departments simultaneously.

The services provided by Dubai eGovernment's contact centre AskDubai (dial 7000 40000) will also be highlighted, including easy access via phone, fax or email, 24 hours of the day. Manned by trained attendants, the contact centre is equipped to provide all information on eServices and individual services of different departments. People can also submit their queries through the portal www.dubai.ae by using different options and selecting the channel of response. AskDubai will serve as the centralised customer service centre for all users of government services. eLibrary is a programme aimed at underlining the importance of adopting new technology to make public libraries more effective in providing information and knowledge to larger sections of society.