Minsk hosts International Telecommunication Union forum
From February 15th-17th, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Forum, entitled Smart Sustainable Cities: Social, Economic and Regulatory Components, is taking place in Minsk – as reported on Beltelecom’s corporate website
The event is attended by Belarus’ Minister of Communications and Informatisation Konstantin Shulgan, Programme Coordinator of the ITU Regional Office for the CIS Farid Nakhli, Director General of Beltelecom Yuri Petruchenya, and Director of Giprosvyaz Anton Alekseev. These were also joined by the Director of the ITU Regional Office for the CIS, Natalia Mochu, via video conference. Representatives of the ITU, government bodies, district executive committees, leading organisations of science and education also take part in the events. Practical experience and ways to build a smart sustainable city at the forum are presented by speakers from Russia, Kazakhstan, Switzerland, as well as specialists from international and leading domestic companies.
Experts present thematic presentations on social, economic and regulatory aspects of smart sustainable cities in several sessions. Addressing the participants of the meeting, Yuri Petruchenya, Director General of Beltelecom, noted that today the attention of Beltelecom specialists is focused on promising projects for the digital economy and, primarily, on creating a modern infrastructure for the widespread implementation of smart city technological solutions.
In recent years, tens of thousands of kilometres of fibre-optic communication lines have been built. All urban multi-apartment buildings, all settlements with 100 or more households, as well as more than 65 percent of settlements with 50 to 100 households are provided with modern lines. Large-scale modernisation of networks has enabled to significantly reduce the digital gap while providing residents of the country with almost equal access to information resources.
Last February, the Ministry of Communications and Informatisation, together with Beltelecom, launched the My City project. This is a mobile app that has digitised the main city services for the population and business. The new platform has become a tool for comfortable interaction between residents and urban infrastructure. To date, the mobile application is already working in five cities of the country: Polotsk, Glubokoe, Pinsk, Orsha and Baranovichi.
The ITU International Forum provides an opportunity to get acquainted with the latest global achievements in the field of smart sustainable cities, which are being implemented under the auspices of the ITU, to exchange experiences, ideas and to find new areas of growth and co-operation.
