Arab e-Content Forum kicks off

MANAMA– The e-Government Authority’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mohammed Ali Al Qaed has affirmed that the Arab content on the Internet is below the expected because of the limited interest of individuals, organisations and governments in it, stressing the importance of developing it through the establishment of research centers specialised in the advancement of Arab content on the Internet.

Al Qaed was speaking as he patronised here today the opening of the Arab e-Content Forum entitled “Prospects and creating new opportunity for development and investment”.

He said that it is important to have an outstanding Arab e-product, without resorting to copying, literal transferring or translation, stressing the importance of relying on new ideas from the Arab minds to come up with unique digital products that does not exist in any language other than Arabic. 

He added that Arab e-content must differ from the traditional paper content, to offer large amount of information in an attractive and accessible way for the users.

He added that the majority of the Arab beneficiaries of e-content resort to English or foreign sources because of lack of confidence and credibility in the Arabic content.

He said that Arab e-content lacks clear and sustainable marketing strategy based on a commercial concept in order to upgrade the Arab E-content. 

He highlighted the initiatives of e-Government Authority in the development of Arab E-content, like supporting Arab e-content specialised awards, establishing an Arab Centre for e-content in collaboration with the United Nations and developing specialised Diploma for e-content management in cooperation with a number of universities and training centres as well as creating a job for e-content management.-BNA