Pushing Buttons

August 30, 2006 (LBO) – One of Sri Lanka's foremost telecom experts, Rohan Samarajiva is due to chair this year's Digital Opportunity Forum in Korea on Thursday. Samarajiva, who is the current Executive Director of LIRNasia will also deliver the keynote address: Bridging the Divide: Building Asia-Pacific Capacity for Effective Reforms.

The two-day parley is organised by the Korean Agency for Digital Opportunity & Promotion (KADO) and International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

The forum will explore international cooperation in ICT development and will focus on further developing the Digital Opportunity Index (DOI), an index which can measure the level of ICT development in a country.

According to ITU calculations as at 2005:
¢ Sri Lanka scored 0.33 on the DOI, which gives it a ranking of 106 in the index, ahead of
¢ India (ranked: 119)
¢ Pakistan (128)
¢ Bangladesh (139)
¢ Thailand (80)
¢ Philippines (94)
¢ Indonesia (105)

The DOI is a useful analytical policy tool, which can give policy makers an indication of the extent of the Digital Divide, that is, the gap between the 'haves'