Miraflores’ Parque Kennedy will soon have full wireless services. (Photo: El Comercio archive)

The district of Miraflores in Peru’s capital is planning to reinstall wireless Internet throughout the Parque Kennedy in the center of the neighborhood. Mayor Jorge Muñoz did not give a specific date, but said that the service would be implemented “soon,” according to El Comercio.

“The use of new information technologies by different government entities in the fulfillment of their duties.” That is the definition of “electronic government” that appears in the council agreement issued by the municipality of Miraflores, just four days after mayor Jorge Muñoz Wells’ administration began its work. The idea is to take advantage of technological tools to improve the lives of residents, and for Miraflores to reclaim its position as a district on the cutting edge of technology issues.

Speaking with El Comercio, Muñoz Wells gave more details about the measure.

Why was one of your first actions to declare the implementation of “electronic government” as a priority interest?
What we are looking to do is reposition Miraflores in its rightful place. In 2005, we achieved an important baseline in terms of using information technology, but unfortunately, over time we lost momentum. What are we proposing? To take up the 2005 platform once more and take it even further. With council agreement 08-2011/MM we are looking to generate transparency, more accessibility, more equality among neighbors, and to improve our use of resources.

What are you doing now and what do you plan to do to reach these goals?
One of the first things is to recoup the use of a Wi-Fi connection. We have already reinstalled it in private municipal spaces and soon we will reinstall it as a free public service in some parks, like Kennedy. We are also using our Web as a way of opening up the municipality, because we believe that transparency is fundamental. For example, on Wednesdays we hold walk-in hours for any resident, and these meetings are broadcast live via the Web. We also do live broadcasts of the meetings of the citizen safety committee, council sessions and other public meetings.

Source: http://www.livinginperu.com/news-14488-tech-communications-lima-miraflores-install-free-public-wi-fi-parque-kennedy

Walter Erquínigo. (Photo: hackermate.tk)

Walter Erquínigo, a 21-year-old information engineering student at Lima’s La Católica university, will be the first Peruvian citizen to work for Facebook, the social network that has more than 600 million users. He will complete an internship with the company.

Erquínigo arrived at Facebook thanks to his participation in the Peruvian team that qualified for the first time for the finals of the 2011 World Programming Contest. The contest is sponsored by IBM, and will take place in May in Orlando, Florida. The Peruvian programmers will be representing Latin America.

Erquínigo and his teammates Jesús Peña, Daniel Soncco and coach Víctor Laguna, all from La Católica, submitted their curricula vitae and caught the attention of multinational information technology companies, like Mark Zuckerberg’s social network and Google, which also showed an interest in them.

“We don’t know of any other Peruvian who works for Facebook, he is the first,” Laguna told elcomercio.pe. He is the ‘coach’ of the group and has already signed with VMware, another software giant with offices in Palo Alto, California.

Laguna is also going through the application process for Facebook along with Peña, while Walter might do his next internship at Google. “He was tempted by the search engine, but he had already accepted the social network’s offer. Daniel is a mathematician and has decided to dedicate himself to his studies for now,” Laguna said.

Erquínigo and Laguna will travel to Palo Alto at the end of April. In May, the “fantastic four” will meet to represent Peru and Latin America in the World Programming Contest.

Source: http://www.livinginperu.com/news-14531-tech-communications-first-peruvian-work-facebook-is-part-team-young-successful-techies

Mobile imports is expected to grow 10 percent in 2011. (Photo: Andina)

The mobile phone sales in Peru increased by over 25 percent in 2010, said Jorge Nieto, Samsung’s marketing manager in Peru.

The Lima metropolitan area led the mobile phone sales in 2010, followed by Arequipa, Trujillo (La Libertad), Chiclayo (Lambayeque), Cusco, Ica, and Huancayo (Junín) areas, telecompaper.com reported.

Nieto estimates that, overall, nearly 5.2 million mobile phones were imported in 2010.

The figure is expected to grow by ten percent in 2011.

Sales of Samsung handsets increased by about 40 percent in 2010. Samsung plans to launch more than five SmartPhone models on the local market over the next few months.

Source: http://www.livinginperu.com/news-13820-tech-communications-mobile-phone-sales-peru-grew-25-percent-2010

LivinginPeru.com

IBM will provide cloud computing technology for 10 Peruvian government-owned companies. (Photo: Internet)

Peru’s National Business Funding Agency (Fondo Nacional de Financiamiento de la Actividad Empresarial del Estado-Fonafe) and IBM announced today a five-year information technology services agreement, reported various news sources.

This agreement will trigger the development and management of a private cloud-computing technology infrastructure that will centralize IT operations for 10 government-owned companies that provide power utility, postal, port shipping, transportation, housing and other critical services to Peruvian citizens.

As part of the five-year project, IBM will consolidate 10 data centers, virtualize more than 130 servers and centralize database administration for approximately 40 applications. Internet, e-mail and social networking systems, such as chat programs, will be centralized and delivered to more than 3,000 users through the use of cloud computing technology.

The government-owned civil services companies that will participate in the project include: Electroperú, Hidrandina, Electrocentro, Electronorte, Electro Noroeste, Corpac, Serpost, Enapu, Fondo Mivivienda and Fonafe.

"This is the first stage of a number of projects that we are designing for government companies to increase their productivity and competitiveness. We are confident that, through an outsourced service model, the FONAFE Corporation will more quickly adopt information technology standards and best practices," said Mario Gonzáles, Fonafe Corporation’s executive director.

These solutions will enable government companies to increase their competitiveness and cut down operating costs through the creation of a Shared Service Center.

Through the use of cloud computing-technology the Fonafe companies, and eventually other institutions of the public sector, will be able to easily benefit from the advantages offered by the Shared Service Center, thus improving the competitiveness of the Peruvian State in the region.

"IBM’s consolidation and virtualization strategy will enable these companies to have a more flexible and safe technological environment that will result not only in cost savings, but also in a more efficient use of power resources," said Jaime Garcia Echecopar, general manager for IBM Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay & Paraguay.

"Through the use of cloud-based services, the organizations can get what they need, as they need it – from advanced analytics and business applications to IT infrastructure such as virtual servers and storage or access to tools for testing software code," he said.

Source: http://www.livinginperu.com/news-14226-tech-communications-ibm-fonafe-bring-cloud-computing-critical-government-services-peru