ASEAN digital and telecom leaders convene to enhance regional collaboration
Senior officials involved in ASEAN member states’ digital and telecommunications sector are in the country for a two-day meeting to discuss collaborations and regional initiatives.The 2024 ASEAN Digital Senior Officials’ Meeting and ASEAN Telecommunications Regulators’ Council (ADGSOM-ATRC) Joint Working Group (JWG) meeting and related meetings with dialogue partners, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT) held its opening ceremony yesterday at The Rizqun International Hotel.
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Memento Maxima Digital MarketingDeputy Permanent Secretary (Infocommunications) at the Ministry of Transport and Infocommunications Haji Hairul Mohd Daud bin Haji Abdul Karim, in his capacity as ADGSOM leader of Brunei Darussalam, emphasised the importance of trust and inclusivity to be aligned with the fourth ASEAN Digital Ministerial Meeting (ADGMIN)’s theme of ‘Building an Inclusive and Trusted Digital Ecosystem’.
He highlighted the importance of fostering collaboration within ASEAN on digital public infrastructure, digitally-skilled workforce development, as well as building resilience and trusted digital ecosystem. This reflects the working group’s ambit in advancing discussions regarding the implementation status of the 2024 ADGSOM-ATRC’s projects and delving into the project proposals for the 2025 work cycle.
“The 2024 ADGSOM-ATRC projects that ADGMIN leaders have endorsed has touch broadly on our regional effort in building a trusted digital ecosystem, which includes projects like establishing frameworks for data anonymisation, combating online scams, and promoting trusted services across ASEAN.
“The ADGMIN also endorsed projects to boost regulatory coherence, such as fostering collaboration between regulators, standardising ‘5G and beyond’ technologies, and tackling e-waste through common charger port devices.”
He also noted that ADGSOM-ATRC leaders have identified several project proposals for the 2025 work activities that will be further deliberated at the JWG meeting.
This included regional guidelines on cloud adoption for public sector, the establishment of an ASEAN artificial intelligence safety institute and a common approach to privacy enhancing technologies.
The meeting was attended by representatives from the ASEAN member states, ITU, APT, dialogue partner countries, Timor-Leste as observer, as well as the ASEAN Secretariat. – James Kon
