FY2020 APT Workshop— Development of fundamental network planning skills for E-application inregional community to bridge the digital divide —International Cooperation Department
The ITU Association of Japan
As part of the human resource support
programs operated by the Asia PacificTelecommunity (APT), APT has been
holding workshops to transfer Japanesetechnologies and services to businesspeople and technologists in APT member
countries, with funding from the Japanese
government. The ITU Association ofJapan has held workshops within these
programs in an effort to reduce the digital
gap for developing countries since 2017,
such as introducing conf iguration ofmobile phone base stations.
During the last fiscal year, a workshop
was held on-line for the two weeks from
November 30 to December 11, 2020, overnine days*1. The workshop was held online
for the first time due to the Covid-19
pandemic. As such, classes were kept short,
to two or three hours per day, to allow
trainees time to concentrate efficiently
on online lectures. The trainees included
nine members from the six countries of
Bhutan, Iran, Malaysia, Mongolia, Palauand Thailand.
The three objectives of the workshop
program were as follows.
(1)	To understand the issues in theparticipant’s own country and to■ Figure 1: Group photo 1

learn how to draft a concrete plan toovercome the digital gap in areas ofthe country.
(2)	To understand the importance of
having clear government policies
regarding construction of networks.
(3)	To acquire skills for proposing
and evaluating solutions for thevarious issues in the participant’scountry, through presentations anddiscussion.
We provided support to participants inachieving these objectives.
On the first day of the workshop,
each trainee gave a presentation of current
conditions in pre-selected regions ineach of their countries. They presented
conditions resulting in the digital gap,including population and geographicalconditions in each region and what sortof gap is occurring. Current conditions inJapan were presented by ITU-AJ Secretary
General, Kazuhiko Tanaka. After thepresentations, participants talked, asking
and answering questions. This allowed
them to gain a deeper understanding ofconditions in each of their countries.
On the second and following days,
lectures were given by Takuzou Fujii,

formerly of Hitachi Kokusai ElectricInc., on concrete network configuration
methods for resolving various issues, anddrills were given for participants to learn
through practice. Participants analyzed
geographical conditions in various regions,studied ways to design networks suited forthe regions, and ways to prepare the ICT
services and environment that would beneeded in each region.
On the fifth day, a lecture on thecurrent state of 5G technology in Japanwas given by NTT DOCOMO, one of
the top telecommunications companies inJapan and the world.
On the last day, each person proposedsolutions for issues they had presented on
the first day. Participants presented anaction plan for how the digital gap could
be filled in, applying the skills they hadlearned in the workshop, considering
the equipment and functionality to beused, maintenance approaches and thecosts involved. After the presentations,participants discussed the proposals,exchanging ideas.
A notable aspect of this year’sworkshop was online group discussions.
Previously, participants have come to Japan■ Figure 2: Group photo 2＊1 The weekdays, with one day off.

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23and participated face-to-face, but this year
it was done fully on-line, and designed
to utilize active learning (an approach inwhich students learn proactively ratherthan passively) throughout.
■ Figure 3: NTT_DOCOMO lecture

More concretely, participants studied
beforehand, reading the text and doing
exercises through e-learning, and then theon-line classes focused on question-andanswer and discussion. In this way, they
were able to approach issues proactively
and experientially.
We also utilized the breakout-roomfeature of the Zoom Web-meeting tool
to divide participants into small groups,
giving them a lot of time to share anddiscuss homework practice exerciseswith each other. Although these group
discussions were on-line*2 , there was■ Figure 4: Presentation 1 after practice■ Figure 5: Presentation 2 after practice＊2 Or possibly because they were on-line. We want to explore this issue further.

24

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extremely lively exchange of ideas.
Through this daily routine, although they
did not meet directly, the participants
seemed to form a tight-knit group,
accepting each others’ differences.
The post-workshop survey indicateda high level of satisfaction, with almost all
participants answering that the workshop
was successful. We expect to conduct more
APT workshops on-line in the future, so
we hope to further increase the value ofthe training, incorporating results fromthis year so that it will be even moremeaningful in the years to come.