Some Major Strategic Issues on
Human Resource Development in APEC e-commerce.

Onno W. Purbo
Indonesia
onno@indo.net.id


1. Most of us agree that Human Resource Development is an important issue to enable APEC economies for getting the most benefit from the technology. Unfortunately, little attention has been given on HRD - it was clearly shown as not many people showed up during HR session.

2. There are two (2) type of activities to be engaged:
   - IT awareness / IT literacy for the society
     (focus on quantity, increase IT demand within the society)
   - Education of IT professionals
     (focus on quality, increase IT supply within the society)


APEC suggested contributions:

3. Some tactical aspects / policy that can be pursued by APEC in getting more IT professionals:
   - Ask the ministry of education at each economy to put IT
     as part of their national curriculum.
   - Inject IT in formal, non-formal & informal education systems.
   - If needed, encourage industry based IT certification programs,
     e.g. Microsoft / Cisco / Linux etc.
   - Encourage B2B market place for possible interaction among
     players of each economy.

4. Some tactical aspects / policy that can be pursued by APEC in increasing IT literacy / IT awareness:
   - Use e-mail as one of the official tools for communication
     among APEC leaders & high level officials.
   - English should be used for cross economies communication
   - Local language should be used within the country /
     economy to reach larger audience.
   - Provide a competitive incentive for IT writers
     (or young writer) to write IT knowledge in their own language.
   - Do a competitive based training for trainers among the economies.


Some activities that should be engaged / provided by economies:

5. Policy / activities in getting more IT Professionals:
   - Encourage the establishment of higher education
     institutions especially in IT.
   - Push university researchers to release their research results,
     especially the one funded by public funding, using GPL / copyleft.
   - Encourage the establishment of digital library &
     knowledge infrastructure.

6. Policy / activities IT Literacy / IT Awareness:
   - Organize Community based Roadshows, Seminars, talkshows.
   - Organize Community based mailing lists.
   - Open all public document on the web for free - no fee, no Xeroxing fee.
   - Open all regulation & public policy on the Web for free.