Dear presidential candidate
We have less than six weeks left to the tenth presidential elections while after holding dozens of elections in different levels, today all political factions and other participants in the elections have found out the point that what attracts the people, is not just candidates' political affiliation, but the correct orientation to economic, social, cultural and political development and resolving problems and straits is exactly what the people consider in selecting their choice.
The key role of IT in the economic, social, cultural and political development and growth and solving the related problems and programs causes that the next president's point of view about this technology gain special importance. Therefore the country's Computer Trade Organization system, that as the IT main non-governmental institution enjoys a wide range of economic activists of this industry, knows it as its duty to help candidates in explaining their points of view regarding information technology to clarify this task at national level. Therefore, in this brief note with emphasis on the most key issues related to information technology, by designing specific questions, it is intended to collect the respected candidates' views and comments about those issues and then give them to thousands of activists in this industry other groups of Iranian people through appropriate way:
1 - Approach to private sector
Today after a period of inattention to the key and important role of the private sector that led to widespread incumbency of the government in economic affairs, all officials have emphasized the importance of this sector and are calling for existence of a strong and active private sector and achieve a determining role in economy by it. Therefore in the course of the executive policies and legislation of Article 44, a valuable and promising goal setting has been done with a special look to strengthen the private and cooperative sector. But despite these attentions serious shortcomings are seen in this area and its execution speed is very slow. Regarding this the following questions are raised:
1-1 – According to the fourth five-year program it was established to reduce 20% of the incumbency of governmental systems and organizations annually and the amount of the private and cooperative sector activities be added, while this true and promising goal setting Unfortunately, has not came into practice . What are the causes of this lack of success and what programs do you for that, if selected?
2-1 – The experience of a significant part of previous governments indicates that along with the people centered organizations, with legal support of some governmental systems, have created parallel structures under the command of existing organizations which contain duties interference with the organizations or supported them seriously. What is your proposed strategy for this coming out of this situation and what is the program you have in this case?
3-1 - In your opinion, how should be the type and amount of the activities of the private sector support in contrast to the governmental agencies and foreign companies? What is the role of people centered Organizations such as the country's computer trade system Organization in this regard and also controlling of the private sector? Do you have any special programs in connection with NGOs?
4-1 - how will you prevent
the intervention of managers and public servants in the acquisition (visible and latent)of the private sector stocks or sharing and influencing them with various methods?
2 - Economic Development
Pattern of economic development is one of the the most important issues that each candidate is required to clear his strategy and program to it. In this regard the following questions are raised:
1-2 –What's your opinion about knowledge based economy? DO you think that the economy can be led to this side? If the answer is yes, What is your program in this regard? Also, if the answer is no, could you say how and with what tools our country will compete in the twenty-first century in the international environment?
2-2 - in economic development, assign different roles for Fava all of which are indicative of it's extremely importance in development. Does your approach to this industry rely more on the capacity of empowerment of the Main economical parts of the country or you mainly consider it in the part position and its high capacity of development in a part scale?
3-2 – according to the fact that the most effective duct in Fava economy, is e-commerce and electronic business, and in this regard despite the positive efforts made in the past years, we are considered as one of the most backward countries with serious backwardness .what's your vision and program regarding the development of e-commerce and e-business?
4-2 - Realization of the knowledge based economy requires suitable basis for innovation, production of technology and new and exquisite products. One of the most important accessories and prerequisites for this task is maturity and expansion of capital market through creating specific markets especially the capital market related to advance industry. This market, which has its own characteristics, in addition needs risk investment institutions (VC) and also business law in accordance with the needs of industry era and advanced technology companies needs. What's your program for the development of capital market in Iran? What's your approach to risk investment institutions in advanced industries such as information technology? What do you think about the business law and necessary reforms and how you will act?
5-2 - one of the most important problems in our country is its low productivity. In your opinion, what role can Fava have in increasing Iran national productivity? What is your program in this regard?
3 - Global interaction
One of the realities of today's world is moving relatively rapid in the field of development of international interactions. Despite that the process of this development is mainly caused by Fava serious role in simplifying, extending and decreasing the price of communication, but on the other hand the rate speed and other countries' use of its results are affected by factors such as being open or closed economy and a type of interaction with other countries. IN this regard the following questions are raised:
1-3 - based on existing international indices, Iran's economy is one of the closed and sometimes unclear economies comparing to some other countries around the world. What are your opinion and program to change this situation?
2-3 - economic development requires investment and investment itself needs financial sources. As one of these sources we can mention foreign investments. This type of investment which brings management and knowledge of foreign hand in addition to financial resources is the interest of many countries around the world. Unfortunately, existing regional and global indices shows that Iran is not in proper Categories of absorption of these investments. What is your program to solve this problem?
4 – Industrial Development
One of the important elements of economic development is industrial development. In connection with industrial development like economic development there are different perspectives and approaches. During the years after the Revolution, considering the system orientation about protectionism, different measures and policies were used in this field. Some of these policies caused the growth and promotion of domestic industries, and some others brought negative effects such as rent seeking or decreasing quality products. As a result, future state's orientations regarding industrial development are very important for all industry members, including activists of this industry. Therefore, regarding the industry the following questions are raised:
1-4 - What is your pattern of industrial development? What are the focused industries in your opinion?
2-4 - What is the status of competition in industrial development? What is healthy competition and it's mechanisms of creation? How will you analyze the role of monopolies in our economy and the paradox of the need to big business enterprises and the need to prevent monopoly?
3-4 – Could you tell us your opinion about the role and importance of small and medium enterprises (SME) in our economy? What programs do you have to support them? How will you set big businesses' relationships with small and medium companies?
4-4 – According to speculations based on expert experiences in the future five years for moving on the twenty-year perspective drawn path and the fifth five-year program being developed, the information technology industry should be at least twice the growth of telecom industry and nearly 6 times the economic annual growth predicted means that it grow at least 46 percent annually.
Where is the IT industry located in your plans considering this challenging aim? And how have you forecasted this rapid growth realization in your programs?
5-4 -In the past two decades many countries around the world have performed extensive investments in domestic production and development of software exports. Regarding the fact that our country has young and talented population that have obtained brilliant achievements in the world scientific competitions and on the other hand, the Trade Promotion Organization in this regard parallel to export mutation strategy has predicted one hundred percent annual export growth to achieve a billion dollars software exports. What's your opinion and program on market and export software development? If you consider this matter possible, is your approach to strengthen the local software industry and then development of its exports or you will put a direct and focused approach to target foreign markets in your agenda?
5 - Human Resources Development
The existence of a large number of young people has provided the growth potential in advanced industries on one hand and on the other hand, can expose the country to unemployment and consequently social problems resulted from unemployment. Although during the years after the Revolution, the country managed to noticeably improve the indicators of human development such as literacy rate and ratio of students to total population and so on, but now faces two important issues. In recent years On one hand the new indicators (such as Informatics literacy) have been brought up about which it is necessary to plan and improve them and on the other hand human resource development also needs to follow good job production at a proper level. The following questions are raised regarding this basis:
1-5 - Today, computer skill is changed into a basic skill for any office job and therefore it is called "Informatics literacy". What program do you have to develop Informatics literacy level in society and seriously promote its quantitative and qualitative parameters?
2-5 – Considering the possibility of young employment in Fava industry with costs much lower than other capital industries, in your opinion how can we make profit of this industry to increase employment and reduce unemployment problems in the country?
3-5 – E-learning is one of the phenomena and results of application of Fava in the field of education that on one hand has provided the possibility for the education in all areas and all time and on the other hand severely has reduced costs of training. What is your program for the development of e-learning and its use in the development of human resources in the country?
6 - Scientific Development
knowledge based economy is not possible without scientific development. Scientific development on one hand has resulted in innovations in producing technology and on the other hand directly affects the innovation in production of goods and presenting services. Thus, a knowledge based economy, relying on scientific development and continuous research and development, potentially contains an important innovation element.
What produced in the scientific development are knowledge, technology and software or intellectual properties in other word. But intellectual properties produce wealth and in this way will help the country's economic development only if the country has intellectual assets infrastructure and sufficiently supports the owners of such properties.
Therefore, only research and effort for innovation does not lead to economic development. Investment in research and development in a country, which does not have appropriate infrastructure of intellectual Properties, will aggravate the country's brain drain.
Because the country has produced scientists and engineers on the one hand of, but on the other hand can not preserve them. So is that the most powerful country like Japan, despite having structures and foundations in the field of intellectual properties, , has not evaluated its status quo suitable in comparison with the U.S.
And provided and carried out a national program for compensation of its backwardness.
Unfortunately, in connection with the intellectual properties our country has very deep shortcomings and is considered amongst the problematic countries in this regard.
Therefore, removing the deficiencies of intellectual properties infrastructure serious supporting of these properties, is not purely related to Fava and especially the software industry, but is considered an important step to create knowledge based economy.
Considering the above points, the following questions are raised:
1-6 – what's your approach to the issue of Intellectual Properties like copyright, etc. Do you think that the owners of such properties have enough supports against their properties abuse and theft?
2-6 – What's your program to create and develop intellectual property infrastructure in the country? Considering the failure in realization of the Objectives of the fourth plan in this field what solutions do you recommend?
3-6 - Although due to the global economic crisis a brain drain phenomenon does not have an increasing trend in the present situation but no works to prevent negative effects of this phenomena which caused the valuable domestic resources in the past years to decrease and adjust, What's your opinion about the Problem of brains drain? And what's your program to solve this problem?
7 - Social and Cultural Development
The extensiveness of social and cultural issues and the deep effects caused by decisions in this field on other areas, including areas of economy and science on one hand, and a comprehensive effect of Fava on the areas mentioned will raise the following questions:
1-7– What's your opinion about the problem of information gap within the country (gap between different geographical regions, gap between different social classes, etc.), and its level of importance and seriousness in Iran? Do you have a specific program in this regard?
2-7 – What's your approach on the media nature of the Internet and issues such as amount and form of its control, the people right to access information and necessity of transparency and the effect of this issue on reducing bureaucratic corruption? What's your program to encourage local content production and universal content for the for foreign audiences?
3-7 – What's Your idea about the Information Society and its related Topics like "security", "Privacy and the laws and regulations in information atmosphere and bandwidth supplying right by the private sector with the application of authority controls? Do you have a particular program in this field?
4-7 – What do you think about the Islamic culture in the information atmosphere and related Topics (culture's effects of information society, cultural invasion, cultural development opportunity, topics related to filtering, shape and degree of filtering, how to protect community from cultural damages and also optimum use of opportunities achieved) and what's your program regarding them?
8 - Government Role
In all countries around the world, the government plays an important role in people's lives. This role is more important in countries such as Iran in which the government got much more notable role with increasing incumbency in people's economic-social life.
So the government related issues such as its triple roles (community management, services, and incumbency) type and amount of government incumbency in economic and social affairs, performance transparency, bureaucracy corruption, accountability, structure and organization of the government and the utilization rate in it, shape of people's participation in the decisions the government makes, etc. is of extraordinary importance for the people.
Fava had deep positive effects on the field of the government too, and in all cases mentioned above could demonstrate its positive effects. In addition, availability of extensive communication facilities and moving towards information society has caused the current structure of the governments does not respond to the needs of society that is being created.
Thus, the government form that Montesquieu had defined it based on the three independent branches is challenged today and is changing. The most important aspect of this change is more direct and broad participation of people in affairs related to controlling a society in which they live.
On one hand, this has made people monitoring of the performance of The executive and The Judiciary more serious and notable and on the other hand has caused people directly affect the decisions made by their representatives in The legislature. It is based on Such interaction that some people predict that in near future the way of the legislation will be changed a lot of comparing today ways. Regarding the above issues the following questions is raised:
1-8 - Global categorizations and studies about the amount of e-Government goals realization, show that Iran does not have the expected and desirable position in the world and in the area. What's your program for the realization of e-Government and improvement Of Iran Status in comparison with what other countries?
2-8 – What's your opinion about concepts such as equal opportunity, justice in reference work, transparency, accountability and responsibility of the government against the private sector? In your opinion, how can we implement these concepts in the process of government purchases and reference work by it?
3-8 – In your opinion how should be the shape and nature of government in the information society? What is your program in this regard?
4-8 – Where is the position of information technology and its highest responsible in terms of structure, in your future government? How do you interpret meritocracy to select managers in the field of Fava? And what indices does this important matter contain in your future government?
Source: ITNA