The Samoa Pathway document highlights the importance of Capacity Building in Section 109 and clearly specifies the role of ICT in Para h (Section 109): “To establish national and regional information and communications technology (ICT) platforms and information dissemination hubs in small island developing States to facilitate information exchange and cooperation, building on existing information and communication platforms, as appropriate;”.
The objective of ICT4SIDS Partnership is to use Smart ICT hubs to accelerate the UN Post 2015 Agenda through ICT. A Smart Hub is a center of activity that is supported by a portal that is:
Location specific, i.e., has the content and the tools of value to the location (e.g., rural or urban area).
Focused on one or more SDGs that are of value to the location.
Capable of detecting a problem/opportunity, adjusts accordingly, and learns to do it better in the next round.
Supports a mixture of people, processes, and technologies tradeoffs.
In particular, we want to use these hubs to rapidly provide the following SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) related services to SIDS at rural, regional and national levels:
Telemedicine for remote populations.
e-Agriculture for farmers in remote areas.
Fishery Distribution for the islands.
Tourism services for economic growth.
Distance Learning Centers for adult education.
Disaster Management Services for affected areas.
Business Intelligence (BI) for decision makers.
The Smart hubs in remote areas can be located closer to the Internet Backbone and thus serve nearby populations that have no/low connectivity.
