YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 4, ARMENPRESS. Toshiyuki Zamma, Executive Advisor to Government Chief Information Officer of Japan, former head of the International Council of the Digital Government, sees good prospects for the cooperation with Armenia.

Recently Mr. Zamma visited Armenia to share his experience in the field of digital society, creation of smart city and IT.

“The purpose of my visit is to share my experience and get acquainted with the experience of your country. I am working in the Japanese government as an adviser to the government CIO, I am also the past chairman of the International Council of Digital Government. I have been in many countries and I am very happy to share my experience”, Toshiyuki Zamma told ARMENPRESS, assuring that the activity of a digital diplomat has no commercial, political purpose, it’s just an expert –to-expert help to create a better society with a digital power.

During his visit in Armenia Mr. Zamma delivered a lecture at the American University of Armenia (AUA), got many questions and gave comments. He said Armenia and Japan have the same problems and can solve them jointly. “For example, Japan shows too much respect to paper. Some companies created an automatic stamp robot. We are still in a paper business, in a paper era. Armenia is very similar to us”, he said, adding that the two countries have the same problems and can solve them.

Toshiyuki Zamma also met with the representatives of the Armenian government to talk not only about the digital economy, but also the digital society. “You need to use the digital power to make better rights for the citizens. Companies have to compete with the companies of other countries. The government has to create a better environment for the businesses”, he said.

According to him, the government should not be a service bender. Zamma recommends the government to be a platform especially in the digital sector. “If the government wants to create an application for instance for smartphones, that would not be useful. They should think about the regulations and rules. But the private company wants to be used more by clients. They continuously improve their services. There is quite difference between the private sector and the government”, he said, adding that the government should focus on creating a platform for the private sector, and the private sector should put the services on that.

Toshiyuki Zamma sees potential for IT development in Armenia. “Your people are very smart, are very good, have the manner. You have a huge potential to work with other countries internationally. I mean the human resource in Armenia has huge potential. Armenians speak English quite well, are strong in mathematics. Sometimes we can see the problem of the cultural background, the traditional way of the business and thinking, this is the barrier to move to the future. I heard that your government has changed, became very young, so you are lucky”, he said.

Toshiyuki Zamma says if one goes on without any preparations for the risks, it means failure. “But other countries also make the similar mistakes, have the same problems”, he said, adding that he can share this information.

“You should focus on the youth to make more familiar with the digitalization. The next step is to invite some international companies to collaborate with them and catch the good customer. If you make some product without customer, nothing good will happen. So you should find the good customer. This is the way to progress. 10 years ago Estonia had nothing, but now it has the top digital government because they focused on the human resources and the collaboration with the private sector”, Toshiyuki Zamma said.

As for the Armenia-Japan cooperation, Toshiyuki Zamma said they have many ideas, but the regulations are different. “Because of the regulations some ideas are difficult to do in Japan, however, if there is no problem to do this in Armenia, we can collaborate and test it here in Armenia, and the result will be good for the Armenian people. I think we should buy that solution from Armenia. Business cooperation will be, of course, possible”, he said.

Mr. Zamma also introduced their successful experience in the creation of a smart city. He said the real smart city is the use of technologies for improving the people’s life quality. “In this context we should find what is the biggest problem in your city in order to solve that. Next time we should solve the second problem by using the digital technologies. Sometimes there is a mistake according to which the smart city is when just good network, good applications are provided”, he said.

“There are many applications now in Japan about the disaster, about the earthquake for example. Another application is a map of crimes, and information about it is provided by the Police”, he said.

As for the regulation of the public transportation issue Mr. Zamma said Japan uses sensors on the buses and the trains. So the people can understand where is their bus, when it will arrive and how long they have to wait for the next. “Sometimes buses are coming at the same times, so we can choose which one is better”, he said, adding that now bicycles are also quite widespread in Japan.

Toshiyuki Zamma said he is ready to again give lectures in Armenia in case of a next opportunity and share his experience. He says he is focused on educating the people, organizing trainings.

Interview by Anna Grigoryan

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan