Digital journey into future

New telecommunications equipment and cloud services: the main technological event of the country took place in Minsk — the 28th International Forum on Information and Communication Technologies TIBO 2022

The event has become a unique platform for the exchange of advanced international experience, the creation of innovative knowledge and the discussion of mechanisms for introducing the latest technological trends. Along with the business programme of the forum, a thematic exhibition of the country’s digital achievements began to work. There one can get acquainted with the latest innovations in telecommunications equipment, the work of cloud technologies and services, the fifth generation of mobile communications, the digitalisation of economic sectors and much more.

Platform for promoting IT solutions

During the official opening of the International ICT Forum TIBO 2022 First Deputy Head of the Belarus President Administration Maksim Ryzhenkov congratulated everyone on the start of the event and read out a welcome address from Aleksandr Lukashenko. 

“The world has entered upon a new era, and Belarus has legitimately won its right to be among the countries that are most actively implementing digitalisation processes in the economy, public administration, financial and social spheres,” the address said.

Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed that the active participation of representatives of the Eurasian Economic Commission, the member states of the EAEU and the CIS in TIBO 2022 allows specialists and experts of the international level to exchange best practices, promote the most creative ideas, and enter into profitable contracts. In turn, Communications and Informatisation Minister Konstantin Shulgan noted that the exhibition brings together specialists from the digital industry, being an important tool for promoting domestic and foreign IT solutions. According to him, it, changing in content, always remains a representative business event in the field of information technology in our country, “This year’s exposition will showcase IT projects in various sectors of the economy and many technological novelties from Belarus and abroad. At the exhibition, everyone will be able to get answers to their questions: how the ID-card works and what public services can be received without leaving one’s home or office, as well as what Belarusian cities have already introduced mobile-based public services and what else is planned to be done as part of the Smart Cities project. In addition — what new tools to promote domestic products have appeared in our country.”
The minister expressed confidence that participation in this landmark event will help build long-term partnerships and promote international co-operation in the IT sector.
State Secretary of the Belarusian Security Council Aleksandr Volfovich emphasised in his welcoming speech that the International Forum TIBO 2022 has been performing an important function of promoting the most advanced and innovative information and communication technologies both in economy and public administration for the past 30 years, “Every year, this event reviews the country’s progress in digitalisation, identifies urgent issues, and outlines the ways to solve them. The forum always promptly responds to various technological, social and political risks and challenges. In the aggravating international situation and sanctions pressure from Western countries, the tasks of effective import substitution, building new co-operative production chains, and ensuring digital sovereignty of Belarus come to the fore. At the current stage of society’s digital transformation, cybersecurity, critical infrastructure and big data are becoming increasingly important for ensuring the sustainability of all areas of activities.”

Innovation centre

The largest domestic and foreign manufacturers of telecommunications equipment, software, mobile operators, developers and suppliers of high-tech products and services for the mass and corporate segment took part in TIBO. The stand of Horizont Holding Management Company was especially notable at the exhibition. According to the director of the Horizont R&D centre Denis Zhilko, it is impossible to fit the entire list of developments of 13 enterprises of the holding at one stand. Therefore, we decided to show the most curious ideas, and there were a lot of interesting things to see, “A transparent video wall panel that can serve for different purposes is result of our joint project with colleagues from the Asian region. For example, it can help to demonstrate visual information in the office. It is multifunctional — it can be used as an advertising billboard or TV. It can be also modified according to the functionality of the client.”
The director also demonstrated interactive whiteboards. Horizont provided many of the exhibition’s enterprises with them, “This is a touch panel that can run a different operating system, which turns it into a full-fledged desktop. Our panel has already successfully proven itself in institutes, training and ordinary schools. Video content allows one to quickly convey information, for example, during chemistry and biology lessons.” The company’s stand also featured a robot that attracted visitors by dancing, “This is also our project. We did not develop the robot, but we specialise in creating algorithms for its operation. It is planned that this will be a robot consultant that could replace or supplement employees, say, in a store. It can talk and dance. Furthermore, it has a built-in GPS-module — it can move along a certain trajectory.” 
Anti-vandal touch intercoms with the ability to output video, an interactive table for children’s development were also presented.
The National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Industry Ministry and the Belpochta national postal service presented a wide range of developments. There were a lot of people near these stands. The stand of the BelGIE State Supervisory Department for Telecommunications was of particular interest. Pavel Baltsevich, Head of the International Co-operation Department for BelGIE State Supervisory Department for Telecommunications, said that the company is introducing an automated control system for the use of the radio frequency spectrum, “We are also demonstrating the QoS Portal v. 2.0. We quarterly publish the results of monitoring the coverage and parameters of cellular communication on our website. However, these results are somewhat complex — there are many parameters. Therefore, we set out to translate this into a more convenient format. At the stand we are demonstrating our future portal, which provides information on the coverage of each operator, each communication technology that is used in the country. There is a statistics display feature.”
The portal will also be accompanied by a mobile application called Khvalya [a wave in Belarusian], which will have similar functionality and will provide information about the location of base stations of other operators. It is expected that the new portal and application will be launched by the end of this year.
Also, a system for assessing the quality parameters of cellular mobile telecommunications was unveiled at the stand of the BelGIE State Supervisory Department for Telecommunications — professional equipment that is used in the daily activities of the enterprise. 

By Ilya Kryzhevich
Photos by Yegor Yermalitskiy, BELTA