A project to unify services provided by Bahrain’s General Directorate of Traffic and the Electricity and Water Authority was announced yesterday (March 17) at the Bahrain International eGovernment Forum 2015.

The 'Unified Interface for Services' concept seeks to provide convenient ways to access the services through one outlet with added benefits through the 'eKey' service. It allows customers to complete transactions securely and easily, said a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

The third day of the forum also saw the inauguration of the IT Expo 2015 by Deputy Prime Minister and Supreme Committee for Information and Communication Technology chairman Shaikh Mohammed bin Mubarak Al Khalifa.

Meanwhile, three winning projects of the Technopreneur programme were announced. The initiative launched by the eGovernment Authority (eGA) in partnership with Bahrain Development Bank seeks to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship in the field of ICT among Bahraini youth.

The event saw the announcement of a Microsoft-certified training programme in collaboration with the Education Ministry in addition to the launch of the 'Recommended Universities' e-service. Powered by the ministry, the service enables users to search for recommended universities and programmes.

After the inauguration of the IT Expo, Shaikh Mohammed visited a number of specialised workshops.
Some of them were 'Social Media - Business Innovation' by Stephen Jio, Global Social Media marketing manager at Dell and creative manager at Alienware Gaming Products; 'Secrets of Business Innovation and Innovative Entrepreneurship: How to Lead, Create, Market, and Sell like an Innovator' by Innovation Institute of America chief executive and president Alexander Blass; 'Big Data - Future and Challenges' by PwC Financial Services and IT Risk consultant Shantanu Chandra; 'Holistic Business Process Management: Improvement to Transformation' by Future Smith founder Donald Smith; 'Building Defensible Critical Information Infrastructure' by ISACA vice-president Vittal Raj; and 'Government Success Stories' by eGA.

Participants
Other participants of the forum were Education Minister Dr Majid Al Nuaimi; Central Informatics Organisation president Dr Mohammed Al Amer; eGA CEO Mohammed Ali Al Qaed; General Director of Traffic Shaikh Nasser bin Abdulrahman Al Khalifa; BDB deputy general manager Shaikh Hesham bin Mohamed Al Khalifa; and Higher Education Council secretary general Reyadh Y Hamzah.

Tomorrow will be the last day of the Bahrain IT Expo 2015 being held at the Bahrain International Circuit. - TradeArabia News Service