“The cessation of operations of once popular Video.az, Myvideo.az, and the scientifically and technically significant resource 'Dilmanc' is not merely the closure of a few websites, but the loss of our national content and digital memory,” said Elvin Abbasov, chairman of the Azerbaijan Information and Communication Technologies Industry Association, in a statement to Medianews.az.
He stated that the decline of such socially significant platforms is a serious and hard-to-recover loss for Azerbaijan’s digital environment: “We believe that since the competitive volume of the Azerbaijani internet segment is small, strategic projects should be approached not only as business entities but with the status of ‘national internet resources’ under the framework of social responsibility.”
According to E. Abbasov, although the Azerbaijan Information and Communication Technologies Industry Association had previously conveyed the gaps and support needs in this field to the leadership of relevant bodies, the initiatives proposed by the association have been overlooked: “Even though these projects began as individual or business initiatives, the market constraints make it impossible for them to compete alone with global giants. Even in giant markets like the USA, state or large corporate sector gives special care to projects of strategic importance. The clearest example of this was seen during the 44-day Patriotic War: when access to foreign social networks was restricted, it became clearly evident how serious the need was for local and secure platforms.”
E. Abbasov emphasized that to protect the ecosystem and ensure our digital sovereignty, a socially oriented consortium encompassing national internet projects must be established.
According to him, within the framework of this model:
- large companies and stakeholders of the country should come together;
- at least 10 important national projects with strategic significance should be selected;
- the infrastructure and financial sustainability of these projects should be jointly ensured.
E. Abbasov noted that the Azerbaijan Information and Communication Technologies Industry Association is ready to present the list of projects with social and strategic importance, to model discussions, and to cooperate in all forms for the sake of the country's digital future.
Nailə Qasımova,
Medianews.az