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The development of the digital ecosystem of the International North-South Transport Corridor was the focus of the Caspian Digital Forum, which was held on November 16-17 in Dagestan with the support of the Russian Ministry of Digital Development. One of the co-organizers of the dialogue platform was the ANO Digital Transformation Laboratory, established by the Eurasian Peoples’ Assembly.
The forum was attended by representatives of federal and regional public authorities in the field of information technology development, transport and logistics, ecology, tourism, science and education, business, specialised associations and unions of Russian regions, as well as foreign delegations from Iran, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Greetings to the Caspian Digital Forum came from Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation Igor Levitin, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation for Digital Economy and Innovation, Communications, Media, Culture, Tourism and Sports Dmitry Chernyshenko, Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the North Caucasus Federal District Yuri Chaika.
Groups from four industry areas worked at the forum to formulate the stages of implementation of this project. Secretary General of the Eurasian Peoples' Assembly Andrei Belianinov made a proposal to establish a Directorate for the implementation of the digital ecosystem within the International Transport Corridor "North-South" with the formation of uniform technical regulations, standards for information exchange between countries, the creation of a unified knowledge base and an approach to personnel training. At the final plenary meeting of the forum, the proposal was supported by the Minister of Digital Development of Russia Maksut Shadayev and the Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Technology Meisam Abedi.
Pavel Basin, Head of the Digital Transformation Laboratory, said: “The project is long, so we need to create an infrastructure. At the moment, the Ministry of Digital Development of Russia and our Laboratory have jointly begun to prepare a draft of protocol instructions from the government following the results of the forum. It will be sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other responsible departments to work out, together with the Eurasian Peoples’ Assembly, the creation of a concept for the regulation of this Directorate. Also, we are preparing letters from the Assembly to the countries where we sent invitations to the forum. I believe this is the main result of the forum for the Eurasian Peoples’ Assembly and the Digital Transformation Laboratory.”
As part of the forum, the leader of the Eurasian Peoples' Assembly Andrei Belianinov held a number of meetings, including with the Head of Dagestan Sergei Melikov and the Rector of the Dagestan State University Murtazali Rabadanov. The parties discussed possible options for cooperation within the implementation of the North-South ITC and other projects.
Also, on the sidelines of the dialogue platform “Caspian Digital Forum - 2023”, the ANO “Laboratory of Digital Transformation” signed an agreement on information exchange and joint activities with the Ministry of Digital Development of Karachay-Cherkessia. Reviewing the work of the Laboratory, experts of the republic noted that “this organization combines all the best practices and solutions related to digitalization. Using experience from working with other regions, they develop perfectly refined algorithms that have been proving their effectiveness for years.”