UZBEKISTAN 9th June 2020 (GNP): On June 8, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev was presented with information on the progress of reforms in the field of information technology and the development of the digital economy.
Recall, on April 28 of this year, the head of state signed a decree “On measures for the widespread adoption of the digital economy and e-government.” To ensure the quality and coordination of the fulfillment of the tasks defined by the document, the post of Advisor to the Prime Minister on these issues has been introduced.
At today’s event, it was noted that the achievement of goals in the field can be accelerated by training a new generation of specialists.
The initial stage of the “One Million Programmers” project covered more than 62 thousand students, and 5.4 thousand of them have already received certificates of qualification.
The task was set to train 100 thousand people by the end of the year and another 150 thousand in the first half of 2021, to improve students’ skills in software development. The instruction has been given to improve the subject “Computer science” taught at the 5th grade in schools and to include disciplines from the project “One Million Programmers” in its program.
Today, there is an increasing demand for the achievements of the digital economy, electronic services, including state ones. However, currently, only 185 of the 780 public services are available in electronic form. And the process of digitalization of the activity of most organizations is reduced to the introduction of electronic document management.
In this regard, the need to accept graduates of the project “e-Learning Program” to work in government and business institutions as IT specialists was noted. They will be engaged in the digital transformation of organizations. For example, the decision to provide loans and subsidies to poor families should be taken automatically by a special electronic program based on specific criteria.
It also requires improving the infrastructure of information technology, increasing IT literacy of the population, especially youth.
The Ministry of Information Technology and Communications Development has been tasked with opening at least 100 digital technology training centers in all regions. These establishments will offer short-term courses in programming, e-commerce, and graphic design.
Attention is also paid to creating conditions for specialists in the field. Last year, software products and information technology park was opened in the Mirzo-Ulugbek district of Tashkent. Branches of this IT-park are organized in Andijan and Margilan. On the territory of the School of Information Technology named after Muhammad al-Khwarizmi in the capital, another branch is being built.
By the end of this year, it is planned to create such branches in Gulistan, Bukhara, Namangan, Nukus, Samarkand, Urgench, and Jizzakh.
At the presentation, responsible persons informed about the construction progress of these IT parks, ongoing work to expand the network of fiber-optic lines, increase the speed and quality of mobile Internet.