For two days, from Thursday to Friday, about 200 government officials from Asia and Pacific countries will gather in Jakarta to attend the Government Leaders Forum (GLF) Asia 2008.

It is organized by Microsoft in close cooperation with the Indonesian government. This is an extension of a growing collaboration between the two entities across various programs, which appears to be creating promising opportunities for the Indonesian people.

The theme of the present GLF is "Serving the Citizens: The Transformative Power of Information Technology in Delivering Government Services". From this theme, we may expect there will be a lot of great ideas as to how information technology can improve then way governments provide public services.

Information technology has really brought a lot of changes to human lives. However, so far it is mainly the private sector that has benefited from the transformation. In the meantime, public sector in Indonesia, although the sector has upgraded its capacity for utilizing information technology, is not as progressive as the private sector.

There are three issues to be discussed in the forum: sustainable economic growth through rural computerization, education and health services. The three issues, together with the information technology sector, are top priorities in developing countries.

From the perspective of corporate social responsibility (CSR), information technology companies have a responsibility to use the information technology under their domains to accelerate developing countries in managing the above priorities.

In developing countries, the utilization of information technology toward economic improvement is now taking place in huge magnitudes. As indicated by the successes achieved by the CSR programs of information technology companies, when rural areas have accesses to computers and the internet, the positive impacts are huge.

Farmers, home industries and common working people use the technology and discover never-before imagined potentials. They have proven to be able to learn fast, to benefit from the information available on websites and take that information as important input in the process of increasing productivity. Their productivity improves quickly and other opportunities appear.

In the education field, the role of information technology cannot be denied. In its best example, Septinus Saa from Papua, who won the highly prestigious world championship in physics, said he picked up a lot of his knowledge after becoming familiar with the internet.

In urban higher education, the internet has been utilized massively, but the biggest challenge is to disseminate its use in primary education, particularly in rural areas. Various examples of computer successes in accelerating education will certainly be discussed at the GLF, so hopefully the government will be motivated to do something about it.

Health service is a common issue in Asia, including Indonesia. The human development index published by the United Nations annually clearly indicates the gap in health conditions between developing and developed countries. As a consequence, mobilization of resources to overcome the problem is vital.

In this regard, once again, information technology plays a very important role in disseminating information on health, both for the public and to help health service professionals perform their jobs.

We can learn a lot from this forum. Many countries and other parties may take advantage of the abundant information related to successful programs in using information technology for the benefit of the people.

In addition, world-class source people like Bill Gates (chairman of Microsoft), Surin Pitsuwan (ASEAN secretary-general) and Kiyoshi Kurokawa (chairman Health Policy Institute, Japan) are scheduled to attend and they will certainly express their enlightening views.

Last year, I was lucky to have the chance to attend GLF Asia 2007 in Beijing. Learning from the experience of last year, one issue that needs to be underlined is that the private sector, education professionals and other elements of society need to take more initiative and not just wait for government action.

What we need in the future is commitment and real proof in promoting public-private partnerships where every element in society and government move forward toward one common goal, i.e. to develop the country.

It is also very important to benefit from GLF-Asia 2008 in order to accelerate the adoption of information technology in many sectors in Indonesia. With accelerated adoption, it is certain that within a relatively short period, relevant innovations in IT use and development will occur. Such innovations will improve conditions in Indonesia. The main question is whether we are serious about benefiting from this important event.

The writer is rector of Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB)

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