TEHRAN – The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has awarded the Iran Digital National Plan project as one of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) champions 2025 in the E-Business category.

The WSIS Prizes 2025 recognizes outstanding projects that leverage information and communication technologies to advance the Sustainable Development Goals. The awards focus on projects aligned with the WSIS action lines and are presented in 18 categories, including the role of governments, infrastructure, access to information, capacity building, and more. 

The achievement is the result of the country’s ongoing efforts in utilizing ICTs to achieve sustainable development and the strategic goals of digital transformation in Iran. It also indicates the country’s commitment to developing infrastructure, promoting electronic services, and strengthening the digital economy at the national and global levels.

The WSIS Forum, which includes the WSIS Prizes 2025 Ceremony, is taking place in Geneva from July 7-11. The 18 winning projects of the WSIS Prizes 2025 will be announced alongside the 72 champion projects at the WSIS Prize Ceremony. 

The Forum serves as a platform for multi-stakeholder discussions on the progress and challenges in building an inclusive and development-oriented information society, according to the World Federation of Engineering Organizations. 

The national digital transformation document is one of the key programs of the ICT Ministry developed to enhance the digital economy and transformative technologies to address the country’s major issues. 

The document focuses on three main aspects, including empowerment, application, and effects, aiming to improve the country’s key infrastructures in various economic, social, and cultural sectors.

The main objective of the document is to build digital infrastructures such as digital identity, data security and protection, digital literacy and skills, and transparency in access to digital data. 

It also focuses on improving key indicators, like developing e-government, expanding internet penetration, and facilitating digital businesses.

Status of ICT in Iran

The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology is the highest authority in the field of ICT in the country. All activities related to the information and communication technology industry are directly related to the ministry.

The government pays special attention to plans and policies in this sector in order to maximize the use of ICT to facilitate people’s lives.

The successful designing, building, and launching of a satellite show the growth of the national technology and scientific power of a country.

Space technology has been considered a tool to expand prosperity, peace, scientific-cultural development, and economic progress in human societies.

Different nations of the world exploit this technology in some way based on their capacity, capabilities, and efforts.

Currently, 13 universities and a research institute affiliated to the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology are offering aerospace majors, thus Iran has a high capability in training specialists and experts in the aerospace sector and is a leading country in the region.

Access to telecommunication services in rural areas of the country had improved over the period as the overall number of villages with access to communication services rose to 52,182, around 93 percent of all villages, while 47,837 villages had access to home landline services.

Moreover, the number of Iranian mobile users reached nearly 135.890 million, according to the CRA which put the mobile phone penetration rate in the country at 161.67 percent.

The figures showed, however, that fixed broadband adoption in Iran had stalled at 14 percent with nearly 11.921 million customers having access to the Internet via those services.

This statistic shows that fixed broadband internet has grown by less than 2 percent compared to last year and mobile internet has experienced a growth of 10 percent. However, it can be said that the speed of mobile internet expansion is 5 times the speed of fixed internet.

MT/MG