Policies enabling Bahrain to diversify its economy through information technology (IT) tops the agenda of the Bahrain Internet Society.

This is in addition to greater support for graduates specialising in IT that will be presented for discussion at the National Dialogue.

"Our society is a professional one and therefore does not have a political agenda," said society chairman Ahmed Al Balooshi.

"We will just focus on the economic and social aspects of the discussions. Our perception is that there is a lot of room for improvement in diversifying the economy through the IT society, particularly through more support for graduates new to the industry.”

"We see a lot of potential and some very good graduates straight from university who don't get the proper mentoring to develop their ideas further, and this is what we will bring up in order to stimulate the economy,” he added.
The society also wants further efforts in building up Bahrain's image on an international level, said Al Balooshi.

"We need to work on the trust factor and through improved IT services and industry, we can show that Bahrain has moved on from recent events and is starting to stand back on its own feet," he said.

"At initiatives such as the Bahrain International e-Government Forum which was held this year, people were surprised to see that the country was different to what was conveyed through the international media."

The social element to the society's involvement in the Dialogue is raising awareness about social media.

"The events in Bahrain started from two pages on Facebook on February 14 and this triggered followers and snowballed," said Al Balooshi. "We intend to use our experience and expertise to show people how to utilise social media in ways that promote our achievements and tackle negativity.

"Social media is a tool from which you can either benefit or abuse. The issue of freedom of expression in social media has political connotations and therefore our society will only give our technical opinion on the matter without stepping into the political sphere,” he concluded. – TradeArabia News Service