| Mongolian
ICT professionals and other interested parties have actively
cooperated and participated in workshops and seminars
organized by the government, donors and companies.
One of the activities was the participation
of some ICT policy makers and leading professionals
in Internet policy seminar organized by Asia-Pacific
Development Information Programme (APDIP).
ICT professionals have also actively participated
in pre-summit series of workshops for the preparation
of a draft ICT Vision 2010 and the National ICT summit.
The result of the main cooperation of
ICT professionals was the ICT Summit in 1999, initiated
by UNDP and Soros Foundation. During this summit policy-makers
and stakeholders jointly revised the draft of ICT Vision
2010, Mongolia's blueprint on ICT. This document was
ratified by the Mongolian Parliament in 2000. In addition,
the National ICT Council was set up, consisting of representatives
from government, NGO's, civil societies and the private
sector as a representing body of the ICT stakeholders
and professionals. The aim of the National ICT Council
was to operationalize the ICT Vision 2010.
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The
National ICT Council has organize several workshops,
seminars and other activities in ICT field. One of this
is the workshop to formulate a Draft ICT Plan of Action
for Mongolia over the period of 2000 to 2003. In
the year 1999 the National ICT Council in cooperation
with UNDP Mongolia, APDIP and Mongolian Foundation for
Open society (Soros foundation) started the development
of the MIDAS (Mongolia Information Development Application
Scheme) project. The National ICT Council was initially
selected to be the implementing agency.
The
aim of the MIDAS project is to support the government
in the creation of an intellectually geared society
and in the development of information and communications
technology (ICT) in Mongolia.
The MIDAS project facilitates the selection
of subprojects for grant services in order to support
the implementation of ICT Vision 2010 - the 'blueprint'
for ICT development in Mongolia.
There are 17 subprojects that were selected
from 76 applicants to the grant competition from both
rural and urban areas.
Projects were selected according to the
following indicators: new applications for ICT, distribution
of the finished products, probability of project implementation,
and possibilities for sustainability.
The National ICT Council
was acting without any legal status and permanent secretariat.
On the other hand, they are expected to initiate ICT-related
activities such as influencing to organize regular activities
and to follow-up.
Thus, the National ICT Council
has established the MIDAS Secretariat, which was responsible
for day-to-day implementation of the project and assists
the Council's activities.
During the period of MIDAS
project implementation, the members of the National
ICT Council were working more closely and they are also
known as a MIDAS Council.
In order to broaden the Council's
activities and to have a legal status, the MIDAS Council
members registered the MIDAS project as an NGO named
"MIDAS" or Mongolian Information Development
ASsociation.
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