The Ministry of Digital Development and Transportation () is a central executive body implementing state policy and regulation in the areas of transport (except for the cases determined by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan), including maritime transport and civil aviation, communications (telecommunication, post), high technologies (information technologies, microelectronics, nano, bio and other innovative science-intensive technologies).

History

The first Ministry of Postal Service and Telegraph of the country was established on May 28, 1918 with declaration of independence of

Azerbaijan Democratic Republic The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (), also known as the Azerbaijan People's Republic (; ), was the first secular democracy, democratic republic in the Turkic peoples, Turkic and Muslim worlds. *Tadeusz Swietochowski. ''Russia and Azerbaijan: ...

(ADR). The first minister was Khudadat bey Malik-Aslanov. When the second cabinet of ADR convened, the government conducted administrative reforms and split the ministry into Ministry of Transportation and the new Ministry of Postal Service and Telegraph. While Malik-Aslanov remained Minister of Transportation, Agha Ashurov was put in charge to lead the Ministry of Postal Service and Telegraph on October 6, 1918. In three successive governments, Aslan bey Safikurdski, Jamo bey Hajinski and J. Ildyrym served as ministers of Postal Service and Telegraph. After establishment of Soviet rule in Azerbaijan on April 28, 1920 the ministry was transformed into Mail and Telegraph Commissariat. From the time of its inception by Soviet authorities, the communications sector was directly managed by permanent representatives of Ministry of Communications of USSR in Azerbaijan until 1953. After restoration of independence of Azerbaijan in 1991, the Ministry of Communications was re-established. On February 24, 2004 as per the Presidential Decree of

Ilham Aliyev Ilham Heydar Oghlu Aliyev (born 24 December 1961) is an Azerbaijani politician who has been the fourth president of Azerbaijan since 2003. He is also the leader of the New Azerbaijan Party since 2005. The son and second child of former Aze ...

the Ministry of Communications was transformed into a bigger Ministry of Communication and Information Technologies. The Ministry of Communications and High Technologies of the Republic of Azerbaijan (MCHT) was established on the basis of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies of the Republic of Azerbaijan by the Order of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan dated March 7, 2014. On February 13, 2017 as per the Presidential Decree of

the Ministry of Communication and Information Technologies was merged with Ministry of Transportation and transformed into a bigger Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies.

Projects

Online Azerbaijan

In the early 2021s, the ministry launched the "Online Azerbaijan" project in order to provide access to high-speed Internet for the population and organizations even in the most remote residential areas of Azerbaijan. The ministry says that the work on the project will be completed by the end of 2024.

Dilmanc project

This project is designed to create and implement formal linguistic technologies for the Azerbaijani language. Translation and dictionary systems between English,

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

and Azerbaijani languages have been created in the project and is available as an online service. European Association of Machine Translation (EAMT) included Dilmanc Project to the list of European research groups. Within this project voice-responded mobile computer was developed and distributed for blind users. This is a joint project of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies and the Heydar Aliyev Foundation. In 2010, the project leader A.Fatullayev was awarded honorary title “ Honored Engineer” by the president of Azerbaijan.

TASIM Project

Trans-Eurasian Information Super Highway (TASIM) is a transnational fiber-optic line covering Eurasian countries from the western

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

to the eastern

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

. The declaration on implementation of the project was adopted in Baku on November 11, 2008. The project provides main transit link from Frankfurt to Hong Kong, and the network will bring together the largest information exchange centers in Europe and Asia. The transit line will stretch across

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. The northern transit link will pass through the territory of Russia,

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

and

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

AzDataCom Project

The project was established by the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies in a partnership with

United Nations Development Program The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries Poverty reduction, eliminate poverty and achieve Sustainable development, sustainable economic growth and Human development (economics), hu ...

(UNDP) and provides a network infrastructure for data transmission covering all regions of the country. The main objectives of the project are elimination of the digital difference in the country, provision of opportunities to use e-government services, development of e-government, meeting the demand of the government agencies, the public and the business sector for ICT services. In the framework of the project, AzDataCom network was carried out in 4 stages. At the first and second stages the network segment covering Baku,

Sumgait Sumqayit (or Sumgait; ; , ) is a city in Azerbaijan, located near the Caspian Sea, on the Absheron Peninsula, about away from the capital Baku. The city had a population of 427,000 at the beginning of 2024, making it the List of cities in Azerb ...

cities and

Absheron peninsula The Absheron Peninsula () is a peninsula in Azerbaijan. It is the location of Baku, the most populous city of the country, and the Baku Metropolitan Area, with its satellite cities Sumqayit and Khyrdalan. It extends eastward into the Caspian S ...

was commissioned. At the stages of 3rd and 4th areas located along the Baku-Ganja, Yevlakh- Shirvan and Baku-Astara were added to the network.

Data Center

Data Center is considered as the first TIER III,

ISO 20000 ISO/IEC 20000 is the international standard for IT service management. It was developed in 2005 by ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7 and revised in 2011 and 2018. It was originally based on the earlier BS 15000 that was developed by BSI Group. ISO/IEC 20000, li ...

and

ISO 27001 ISO/IEC 27001 is an information security standard. It specifies the requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and continually improving an information security management system (ISMS). Organizations with an ISMS that meet the st ...

certified data center both in Azerbaijan and

South Caucasus The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and West Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Armenia, ...

. The center was established by AzInTelecom LLC on the base of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies in 2016. The work level of the data center is 99.982%. Servers in the center are under sustainable control for 24 hours and seven days a week. Total area of the Data Center is over 700 square meters, where data transfer is carried out at high speed.

Azerspace-1

The first satellite of Azerbaijan, Azerspace-1 was launched into orbit on February 7, 2013 at 18:36 (on February 8, 2013 at 01:36 Baku time) from the

Kourou Kourou (; ) is a commune in French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France in South America. Kourou is famous for being the location of the Guiana Space Centre, the main spaceport of France and the European Space Agency (ESA). It ...

cosmodrome situated in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. The satellite was developed by the American company

Orbital Sciences Orbital Sciences Corporation (commonly referred to as Orbital) was an American company specializing in the design, manufacture, and launch of small- and medium- class space and launch vehicle systems for commercial, military and other governmen ...

. In 2014, approximately 100 television and 20 radio channels were broadcast via the satellite.

Azerbaijani Cybersecurity Center

The Ministry created the Azerbaijan Cybersecurity Center with the support of PASHA Holding and cooperation with

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology is a public university, public research university located in Haifa, Israel. Established in 1912 by Jews under the dominion of the Ottoman Empire, the Technion is the oldest university in the coun ...

. The opening took place on March 28, 2023. The event was attended by Ali Naghiyev, Rashad Nabiyev;

Gabi Ashkenazi Gabriel "Gabi" Ashkenazi (; born 25 February 1954) is an Israeli politician and former military leader. He previously served as the minister of foreign affairs. He was the Chief of General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces from 2007 to 2011. ...

, Boaz Golani, as well as representatives from the Israeli Embassy and other government officials. The ministry has stated that the center's objective is to provide training to over 1,000 individuals within a span of three years. The center also plans to develop cybersecurity experts by initially training 15 trainers.

Twinning

On October 7, 2022, the twinning project focused on "Strengthening road safety in Azerbaijan" started with the support of the

European Neighbourhood Instrument The European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) came into force in 2014. It was the financial arm of the European Neighbourhood Policy, the EU's foreign policy towards its neighbours to the East and to the South. It had a number of programmes. In 2021, ...

. The project is expected to have active participation from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Science and Education,

Healthcare Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...

, and other related institutions.

Technest Scholarship

Technest is a national scholarship program in the field of ICT established under the Innovation and Digital Development Agency. In the year 2021, Technest provided scholarships to 671 individuals, in 2022 the number increased to 782, and in 2023 a significant jump was observed with 4006 people receiving scholarships.

Government cloud

On June 3, 2019, the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed a decree "On measures in the field of creation of the Government cloud (G-cloud) and provision of cloud services". The Ministry is appointed as the operator of G-Cloud. As of 28 February 2024, 110 state institutions in Azerbaijan have transferred their information systems to the G-cloud.

Other

In addition, among the projects of the ministry is "", the first venture fund in Azerbaijan. It was created with the participation of the ministry, PASHA Holding and individual investors.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ministry of Digital Development and Transportation (Azerbaijan) Economy of Azerbaijan Communications in Azerbaijan Telecommunications in Azerbaijan Digital Development and Transportation

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

Cabinets of Azerbaijan