November 26, 2004 - The opening speech in the section "Knowledge Economy" was made by Mr. Marco Borsotti, UN Resident Mr. Borsotti briefly informed participants on the issues having been discussed since the starting of the conference. According to him, the development of ICT also contributes to the improvement of life standards of people too. Mr. Borsotti also stressed that the knowledge economy will influence all spheres of economy saying that "The issue concerns the improvement of people's life standards".

Mr. Kamran Imanov, Chairman of the State Copyright Agency made a speech on the "Knowledge economy and Intellectual Property Rights: Azerbaijani Case Study". Saying that the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Mr. Ilham Aliyev pays special attention to this area he also noted that creation of the information society should be in line with other principles of Azerbaijan. Mr. Imanov stressed that intellectual property has become a great part of trade and thus the system of protection of intellectual property has already been established. In his opinion there are 2 reasons that have been a basis of need for ICT market: The first one is the beginning of privatized production in the economy which means that the demand for goods arises before their production. The second reason is the increase of demand for raw materials. Remembering that due to transition process in the economy of Azerbaijan he satated that the intellectual property was not the issue concerning people at that time.

Talking about the progress made in the field of copyrights in Azerbaijan Mr. Imanov noted that the internet has become the virtual market of intellectual property. However he also talked about the violation of intellectual property: "Of course this issue concerns us. But I can convince you that due to the protection of ICT sector in Azerbijan we have no such problems at the moment both in internal and international market. Mr. K.Imanov also informed participants that Azerbaijan has already joined two conventions of the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Mr. Wagner Gerhard, Secretary General of VIW E-Business company presented a speech on the topic "Speeding up E-Governanace and Information Society by PPP". Mr. Gerhard stressed the experience of and progress made during the decade in Austria in this field. He also noted that PPP has an important role in the solution of problems arisen between private and public sector and expressed his opinion that the same technology might be applied in Azerbaijan, since there is a serious corruption problem in Azerbaijan.

Mr. Elchin Aliyev, Vice -President of AzRENA peresented a speech on the "National Research Educational Networks' Role in ICT Development: Caucasus and Middle Asia (Experience)". He also touched upon the situation of this field in Azerbaijan. Mr. Elchin Aliyev considers the use of European experience in this field is important, since national research educational networks plays an important role in the development of ICT. Noting that development of ICT is a beginning of new century in Azerbaijan he said that successful actions were also taken in the sphere of information protection. Mr. Aliyev stated that for the purpose of the provision of schools with computers 20 million AZM has been allocated from the state budget of Azerbaijan and almost of the computers in schools are expected to be connected to internet.

Mr. Eduardas Vaigauskas, Senior Sales Manager of Wincor Nixdorf Int. GmbH+ presented a speech on the "Postal System Role in the Information Society. Wincor-Nixdorf and Colvir Solutions for postal applications". He stated that the company he represents has a 1.6 billion liabilities and the company implements several projects in Azerbaijan for the improvement of bank and postal services. Talking about the pressures over the postal services, Mr. Vaigauskas noted that due to the e-mail all these problems have been overshadowed. In his opinion the role of mails in the society should be increased. Mr.Vaigauskas has also touched upon the exeperience of Euroepan countries in this field.

Mr. Wang Kexiang, Vice-president of Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd company presented a speech on the "Development of Telecommunication in the world." Vice-president and executive director CEO iProA, ESRI China Ltd, Dr. Winnie Tang made a speech on " Connecting Our World: GIS Web Services".Talking about this sphere, he informed partcicipants on the experience of many countries, including Australia, Hong-Kong and China. He noted that they will offer that service to the many developing countries in future.

Mr. Marco Borsotti, UN Resident Coordinator, UNDP Resident Representative Mr. Marco Borsotti made a speech as a conclusion of the discussions stating that the spechees presented by partcipants again confirmed the importance of the event. "The experience sharing in this conference made a lot of contribution to the knowledge of all of us" he stated. Highly apperciating the presentations made by participants Mr. Borsotti noted that the next speeches will be more interesting and important.

Mr. Wang Kexiang, Vice-president of Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd company presented a speech on the "Development of Telecommunication in the world." Vice-president and executive director CEO iProA, ESRI China Ltd, Dr. Winnie Tang made a speech on " Connecting Our World: GIS Web Services".Talking about this sphere, he informed partcicipants on the experience of many countries, including Australia, Hong-Kong and China. He noted that they will offer that service to the many developing countries in future.

Mr. Marco Borsotti, UN Resident Coordinator, UNDP Resident Representative Mr. Marco Borsotti made a speech as a conclusion of the discussions stating that the spechees presented by partcipants again confirmed the importance of the event. "The experience sharing in this conference made a lot of contribution to the knowledge of all of us" he stated. Highly apperciating the presentations made by participants Mr. Borsotti noted that the next speeches will be more interesting and important.

Mr. Rasim Aliquliyev, Director of Information Technologies of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences presented a speech "About Actual Problems of the Information Society Establishment in the Republic of Azerbaijan" He noted that different actions were taken for the creation of national information society all over the world and all the differencies between Azerbaijan and other countries in this field should be investigated and then relevant activities should be started in Azerbaijan in two directions: "These directions are horizontal and vertical informatization". He also noted that before all of the above mentioned the existing problems in Azerbaijan in this field should be solved. In accordance to Mr. Aliguliyev these problems are as follows: "Establishment of legislative base, organization of groups for the monitoring of comparison with other countries, socio-economical problems, problems arisen from the language and experience differencies and scientific-technical problems". Nevertheless, Director of Information Technologies of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences noted that for the development of this field various succesful actiosn were also taken: "Creation of Information and Communcations Technologies, adoption of new laws are the indicators of the fact that Azerbaijan has made a progress in the development of ICT". Mr.Al?quliyev also made some suggestions for the solution of the above mentioned existing problems: "Developement and launch of some state programs, preparation of Action Plan for the regions, including the ICT expenses into the state budget for 2006 may contribute a lot to the solution of these problems"

Mr. Sergei Kambalov, Deputy Executive Coordiantor of UN ICT Task Force presented a speech on the "Information Society and Millenium Development Goals"

Mr. Ayhan Beydogan, Member of Board of Telecommuncations Authority presented a speech on the "Tranformation to International Society: Problems and Solutions"

Mr. Ogtay Akhundov, National Coordinator for E-Helath Project, Head of Bureau of Health Information and Statistics of the Ministry of Health of Azerbaijan made a presentation on "The Role of National System for Helth Monitoring (NSHM) in Efficient Allocation of E-Government Resources in Azerbaijan".

Mr. Marco Borsotti, UN Resident Coordinator, UNDP Resident Representative made a final speech on the "Facilitating Efficient Application of ICT for Development" in today's conference. Then Mr. Borsotti expressed his gratitude to all partcipants saying that "all the partcipants made a lot of contribution to the work of the conference and topic concerned". Mentioning that all the speeches covered issues related to education he noted that regarding the education, it must cover the education of all citizens, not only young people.

The presentations were followed by discussions on the topic.