The Launch of the GovStack CIO Digital Leaders Forum took place on June 2, both online and on-site in Geneva, Switzerland, on the margins of the Final Week of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum 2022. The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) has participated in the Forum.
 
The launch event was co-organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the German Agency for International Cooperation or (GIZ), the Digital Impact Alliance, and the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
 
During the event, the Deputy ICT Minister for Administrative Development, Digital Transformation, and Automation Khaled El-Attar has presented Egypt’s experience in digitizing government services and implementing GovStack, a multi-stakeholder initiative for supporting governments in their digital transformation journey and accelerating the digitization of government services.
  
GovStack CIO Digital Leaders Forum is a year-long knowledge sharing program with workshops in the form of webinars. Each episode of the forum hosts a government CIO to share their country's experience in digitizing government services, using a building block approach.
 
The Forum brings together a large community of “ICT for development” stakeholders, including digital development practitioners, government policymakers, donors, and technology sector actors. The event serves as a platform for exchanging information, creating knowledge, and building partnerships.
 
The Final Week of WSIS Forum 2022 was held on May 30- June 3. Its agenda featured sessions including Mainstreaming Gender Equality in Digital Transformation Policies through Capacity Building, the Future of the Internet: Towards more inclusive and effective governance, Accelerating Progress on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Network Innovation for Connecting Remote Communities, and Breaking Barriers to Universal Meaningful Connectivity, among others.
 
Along with an Exhibition on ICTs for SDGs, the agenda of the Final Week included the WSIS Prizes 2022 Ceremony. It is worth mentioning that the National Telecom Regulatory Authority’s interactive mobile application, My NTRA, was selected as one of the Champion Projects of WSIS Prizes 2022, Category 7 — AL C7. ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life — e-government. The application beat out 966 projects.
 
The selection of My NTRA was based on several criteria, most notably for meeting global e-government standards, supporting the Egyptian national strategy of digital transformation, and making services available in a digital format as an alternative to traditional methods. The App, also, helps foster competition and promote innovation, serves both individual and corporate users, and targets different groups such as youth, seniors, Persons with Disabilities (PwDs), and users in remote and rural communities, thus facilitating the public access to services nationwide.