The Angolan government has announced that it will be starting implementation, by next year, of a project concerning the identity and identification of citizens and the security of electronic communications
Tunis (ots)
This project will form part of an ambitious "Plan of Action for Electronic Governance".
The immediate objective of the "Secure Angola Project", which is planned to start in 2006, is the establishment of a "Public Key Infrastructure" (PKI); it will be headed by WISeKey and rely on the direct participation of Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard (HP).
The large Angolan government delegation, which is attending the second phase of the United Nations Summit, the World Information Society Summit, and headed by the Prime Minister of the country's government, Fernando da Piedade Dias dos Santos, today visited the stand of the Swiss company WISeKey SA. WISeKey SA is responsible for the design, implementation and management of the "Secure Angola Project", which is planned as a component of the "Action Plan for Electronic Governance", aimed at helping the country to take a conclusive step towards the digital society.
The emergence of the knowledge society will demand from all of us - as the Prime Minister declared during his visit - new ways of seeing and analysing the world around us and new governance paradigms. This will involve new models and new schemes for interaction between government and citizens, giving another vision and greater effectiveness to citizens' contact with and participation in the social, cultural, educational, academic, economic and political life of the country.
Reflecting the Angolan government's commitment to build the information society, the Angolan delegation included various members of the Government, amongst them the Deputy Minister for Science and Technology and Chairman of the National Information Technology Commission, Prof. Pedro Teta.
"The Ministry of Science and Technology" - declared Prof. Pedro Teta, Deputy Minister and Chairman of the National Information Technology Commission - continues to implement policies capable of bringing Angola up to the front line of countries committed to building the knowledge society. We are fully aware - Prof. Pedro Teta added - that we have a long way to go because of various historic factors, but we have the will, the vision and, above all, the essential support of the President of the Republic, as well as the institutional solidarity of the Government as a whole. Although we do not have human resources on a scale with our ambitions, we do have the political will and we are counting on international solidarity to increase our technological and human capabilities. As a result, over the next five years, Angola will spare no effort in seeking to attain the levels of development in the field of knowledge and use of ICT that can bring us closer to best practice on other continents".
Carlos Moreira, Chairman of WISeKey, expressed his own personal interest and the full commitment of the team he leads in making appropriate solutions available to the Angolan Government to resolve the problems of security of communications, identity and identification of citizens and, generally speaking, every solution likely to foster the emergence of the digital society.
In modern societies - Carlos Moreira stressed -the existence of technologies is not sufficient to turn them into contemporary societies, i.e. into knowledge societies. The wide variety of situations of insecurity encountered by the outside world and the mobility of the majority of citizens reaffirm the need for new forms of sovereignty: the identity and identification of citizens, using digital media, are of vital importance in reasserting the sovereignty of States and for the security of the world"
Frank McCosker, Senior Director Global Strategic Accounts, Microsoft Corporation commented: "Information security and the extension of workflow to include citizens and companies are key components of e-government. We are supporting the efforts of WISeKey to ensure that solutions based on Microsoft technologies are delivering very high value for the unique needs of the Government of Angola."
Dave Lanning, Director, Government and Defense, Public Sector Segment, Europe, Middle East and Africa: HP has been helping governments around the world extend their e-government capabilities and aspects of their national identity systems for over a decade and is ready and happy to provide the Government of Angola with the best products, services and support from its array of public sector solutions, including its comprehensive end-to-end NIS solution build on the Microsoft.NET platform."
This solution has been especially designed to help governments respond to changing security and identification requirements and provide citizens with fundamentally improved, secure and intelligent identity documents in cost efficient and flexible manner".
Contact:
Daniel Ybarra
Director of Corporate Communications
E-Mail: info@wisekey.com