Dharamshala: The Central Tibetan Administration convened its first-ever Tibetan IT Professionals’ Conference here in Dharamshala today at Administrative Training and Welfare Society Centre. Sikyong Penpa Tsering of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) presided over the inaugural of the two-day conference along with Kalon Norzin Dolma, Secretary Karma Choeying, Tibetan Computer Resource Center (TCRC) Director Tenzin Tsultrim and Geshe Lobsang Monlam of Monlam.

Co-organised by the TCRC and Social and Resource Development fund (SARD) of the Department of Finance, the conference is participated by more than 50 Tibetan IT Professionals across India. The 2-day meeting aims to strategise the future of digitisation efforts and strengthen the technical expertise within the Tibetan community to achieve the digital transformation vision of the CTA by developing a network of Tibetan IT professionals to utilise the limited available resources efficiently.

Sikyong Penpa Tsering, in his inaugural speech, shared his vision for a greater collaboration within the Tibetan community through leveraging existing talent and resources from the community towards the common vision of successfully sustaining in exile until the resolution of the Sino-Tibet conflict is not achieved. Remarking on the challenges of the dispersed Tibetan community against the rapid growth of modern technology, Sikyong emphatically implored the necessity to leverage the opportunities and prepare for the foreseeable challenges.

Digital Futures stands as one of the core visions of the current CTA leadership, with multi-faceted approaches being piloted with various collaborating partners. The CTA has organised the first digital strategy meeting in early December 2022 to inform the future of digital Tibet. The partners of the CTA and various IT experts attended that 2-day meeting to strategise the future of digitisation efforts. Following the 2-day strategy meeting, an intensive 2-day workshop was held for the digital working group of the CTA which was facilitated by the E-Governance Academy (EGA) of Estonia. A few tentative outcomes from the 2-day strategic meeting were, as prerequisites, to develop an IT policy for the CTA, to strengthen the cyber security, and to begin digitisation of systems and processes. Other decisions were to build the capacity of the TCRC, the IT section of the CTA, and all aspects of IT-related activities, including digitising both internal and external services of the CTA. 

Kalon Norzin Dolma, re-emphasised Kashag’s endeavour to understand the present status of Tibetan IT professionals in India so as to build a more extensive network of IT professionals and deliberate on possible future collaborations in serving the Tibetan community.

“By organising this conference, the administration is looking to understand its youth capacity in the IT field in India. While the CTA understands the considerable number of IT professionals in India, the lack of connectivity among them professionally is the key concern that the administration wants to resolve in addition to empowering secure and resilient IT infrastructure and enhancing future collaborations”, Kalon added.

Secretary Karma Choeying gave a welcome speech at the IT conference.

The two-day conference is supported by USAID funding through the National Democratic Institute (NDI).