Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.18
By Sadraddin Aghjayev – Trend:
Creation of ‘Center for Analysis and Coordination of the Fourth Industrial Revolution’ public legal entity under Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Economy aims at the cooperation of the country with international organizations and coordination of internal structures, challenges, initiatives, strategies, and projects in the digital economy, Ilgar Aliyev, an expert at the Prime Consulting & Management, told Trend.
According to Aliyev, the integration of innovative solutions that Azerbaijan didn't have before has been recently revealed in the country.
"In the information space of Azerbaijan, the center will allow analyzing technological operations between the population and government agencies, as well as expanding the use of robotic and cloud technologies, artificial intelligence, BIG DATA, and a number of other solutions. It will also serve to be a platform for the development of other entities," Aliyev said.
“The project’s financing will be carried out via the state budget, incomes received from the center’s activities, grants, and other sources not prohibited by law,” he added.
In accordance with the Azerbaijani president’s order, the Cabinet of Ministers was instructed to resolve issues related to providing the center with logistics for two months.
General Manager of Microsoft Azerbaijan Gachay Mirzayev in an interview with Trend informed about the global demand for software of the corporation, support of business innovations, and innovative solutions for manufacturers and industry.
Speaking about the corporation’s software, Mirzayev noted that the Microsoft Azure IoT Security solution presents threat management and protection for client and server, including IoT devices, IoT nodes, as well as the computing resources and data resources which are used by our solutions basically, relieving the users of their own efforts and bringing the security of our IoT solutions in accordance with the rest of the Azure-based solutions and specialized applications.
Among the business innovations, he highlighted the Microsoft Azure IP Advantage program which will help provide comprehensive protection against intellectual property risks, offering unlimited compensation coverage for Microsoft's Azure Sphere platform and Windows IoT, access to 10,000 patents for customers using Azure to keep IoT devices running and avoid legal action, and the opportunity for startups using Azure to get Microsoft patents free.
Touching upon innovations for industrial spheres the general manager pointed out three key services with enhanced IoT threat protection: Azure Security Center for IoT can now be used to implement security best practices and threat mitigation for any IoT project, including hosts, computers, and data.
“Azure Sentinel, the first cloud-optimized information security and event management (SIEM) solution, can now protect an entire enterprise from threats, including threats to IoT devices. Azure IoT Hub now integrates with Azure Security Center for IoT to provide information security for IoT devices directly on the host's web portal,” added Mirzayev.
Besides, the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies of Azerbaijan said that the number of issued e-signature tokens in 2020 amounted to 17,756 units, adding that an increase in the number of e-signature users also lead to an increase in the number of transactions (about 8 million transactions).
During online interviews, reflecting the initiatives on its digital transformation, with Ramil Eyyubov, head of the program for accelerating digitalization in Azerbaijan and regional director of the world-famous company CISCO Vladimir Orlov, it was revealed that the company has a huge number of ‘Smart City’ projects for Azerbaijan.
According to Eyyubov, the ‘Smart City in Azerbaijan’ project will operate according to the ‘system of systems’ model, where a number of different projects will be included in one large data processing center, such as the digitalization of agriculture, the energy industry, healthcare, as well as their interaction with government agencies. Implementation of the project will begin from sectors where the need for digitalization is the highest.
In turn, Orlov said that the Smart City project initiative in Azerbaijan has been slightly expanded.
“Within the Smart City project we’ll increase the number of services that will be automated, and their volume goes beyond the Smart City concept. All these smart solutions will be implemented regardless of whether the Smart City concept is ready or not. That is, two simultaneous directions of development are being formed - public and private," he noted.
Summing up the interview, Orlov noted that in addition to the large cities of Azerbaijan, the country's regions will also be digitalized and ‘smart’.
"Despite the fact that today the project is being implemented, for example, in the cities of Baku and Ismayilli, this does not mean that other large cities of Azerbaijan won’t be digitalized. Following the large cities, naturally, within the Smart City project, other cities of Azerbaijan will also be digitalized," added the director.
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