Teletimes April 2011.pdf

and establishing processes.
He is a result oriented person
with ability to lead teams to
common objectives and high
standards achievements. Talal
has experience in leading
technical projects that
require different level
of systems and
integration with
links to business
processes.
Mr. Talal Sulaiman
Al Rahbi was
kind enough to
be interviewed
by the Chief
Editor, Teletimes
International in Muscat.
The interview is given
below for the readers.
Teletimes - Would you like to
tell our readers about the basic
operations and objectives of
ITA Oman?
Talal Al Rahbi -
ITA(Information Technology
Authority) Oman is a
government independent body,
it was created or established
in 2006 as part of a national
strategy regarding e-governance
which was approved by
the cabinet in 2002 to be
implemented and part of this
strategy was to build a digital
society and there were a
number of projects that were
recommended as part of the
strategy. ITA was established
to undertake the infrastructure
projects in addition to helping
the government provide its
services online and equipping
the public and the government
employees with the right skills
to benefit from technology.
TT - Would you like to share
with us the outcome and
detail of your projects like the
digital literacy training and
certification for civil service
workforce etc.
TAR - One of the main
responsibilities of the ITA has
been to equip and train the civil
service employees, as well as
citizens so that they can benefit
from technology. We have two
One of the
main responsibilities of
the ITA has been to equip
and train the civil service
employees, as well as citizens
so that they can benefit
from technology.
main projects, one main project
is about training around a
hundred thousand employees
with IT skills, we carry out
replacement tests, and we just
finished replacement tests for
over 40000 employees. Over
23000 civil service employees
have finished the training. The
project is still on-going and
we aim to train over 100,000
employees.
On the other hand, we are
establishing community
knowledge centers (CKC).
These centers are distributed
throughout the country
in the main cities of
Oman. These centers
provide free training
of basic IT skills.
Anybody from the
community is
eligible to take
this training
if he/
she is
above 15 years old and is
able to read and write, and
these centers also serve as an
access point to internet for
the general public. Besides
the training times, people can
come and use these centers
to access internet or use
the government services
online.
TT - ITA recently
signed a
Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU)
with Qalhat LNG
who will support
the establishment of
the first ever Women’s
Community Knowledge Center
(CKC) in Al Batinah region. Our
readers would like a few details
in this regard.
TAR - Training the community
and providing them with the
right skills requires partnership
with the private sector as
well. We have a number of
companies in Oman who have
funds for social responsibility
such as Qalhat. We are also
trying to work with nonprofit
organizations or nongovernment
organizations such
as the Women Association
to establish more centers to
train the community. One
agreement is with the Women
Association, and we
also ask other
companies like
Qalhat as
mentioned,
and
thankfully,
they agree.
We are
hoping
that other
companies will
also partner
with us in
supporting this
project.
TT - As the
Information
15Apr - 14May 2011
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