Archive for the 'eGovernment' Category

Open Source Software (OSS) for Vienna’s local government

Published on October 29, 2009 in Austria and eGovernment. 0 Comments Tags: call, funding, local government, vienna.

Last week I received a call for project proposals, called “Open Source for Vienna”. The technology funding agency of the city of Vienna has launched a call for proposals that support the switch of the local government to open source software (OSS). They claim the city has been using OSS since 1989 for the public administration. They see OSS as an enabler for efficient and lean government.

The call hopes to attract visionary ideas to better communicate between the Vienna city government and its citizens as well as to solve future administrative challenges in a modern and economic way.

You can find additional information about this call at http://www.zit.co.at/foerderungen/aktuelle-calls/open-source-fuer-wien.html (Only in German).

How are your local and national governments thinking? Is this a general trend for public administrations? Is the city of Vienna in this respect a front-runner or follower?

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Interested in research cooperation on Digital Content?

Published on May 7, 2009 in Current events, Czech Republic, eCommerce, eGovernment and EU funding programmes. 2 Comments Tags: "digital content", brokerage, communities, cooperation, discussion, event, FP7, R&D, research, web2.0.

On Thursday last week Gunther Krumpak and I were facilitating one of the discussion tables within the ICT Brokerage in Brno, the event co-organised by our FIRST Innovation Park. See Gunther’s post about the event. The second day consisted of interactive discussions divided into six tables according to the FP7 5th & 6th call’s challenges. Ours was dedicated to Digital Content, Technology Enhanced Learning and Intelligent Information Management.

We had an interesting bunch of researchers, companies, both experienced Framework Programme players as newcomers around the table. As usually the most useful talks happen with those you choose (or who choose you) for coffee conversations. We have also distributed copies of two documents that may be also of your interest – the relevant part of the FP7 workprogramme and the examples of projects funded under FP6 or FP7 1st call. By the way the 4th ICT call (closed on April 1) attracted in total 1267 project proposals – 954 STREPs 954 and 172 integrated projects (IPs).

If you are interested in international R&D projects around building virtual communities, Internet application including web 2.0 and social networks and if you are looking for a partner in the Czech Republic for 5th or 6th call proposals, feel free to contact us.

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Internet Street lacks Internet

Published on December 4, 2008 in eCommerce, eGovernment and Facts, figures & trends. 0 Comments Tags: barriers, internet penetration.

I just stumbled upon this curiosity and could not believe it, i.e.

A Polish man living on a road called Internet Street in Warsaw has caused a stir after it emerged he is selling his house because he is unable to set up a broadband connection

[source: Total Telecom]

Is it still nowadays possible that a decent Internet access is not available in urban areas?

Remember that you get wireless access of the GSM network or urban hotspots nearly everywhere.

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The BITERAP cluster provides ERP support for public government in Slovakia

Published on November 10, 2008 in eGovernment, Innovation policy and Slovakia. 0 Comments Tags: ASP, best practices, integrated SW package, local government.

BITERAP, a consortium or cluster of IT oriented companies, is an “early bird” example of PPP (Public Private Partnership) in Slovakia. The aim of this PPP is to provide IT solution support for local government and state organizations in the Slovak republic. BITEAP’s activities are aligned with local government and EU programs for establishing an e-government platform and content.

BITERAP’s ASP solution offers governments bodies access to leading edge IT software solutions, as the basic tool for the daily work of those organizations. The software works in a similar manner to other ASP solutions, but is specifically tailored for the needs of the public sector:

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Three rules for getting the most out of any conference

Published on June 11, 2008 in Austria and eGovernment. 0 Comments Tags: Austria, conferences, e government, vienna.

Yesterday, I was a speaker at the Digital Cities conference hosted by the city government of Schwechat, a town located just outside of Vienna next to the airport. The topic was “Is the digital city prepared for the impact of new technologies?” (That was my rough translation from the German.) I was asked to give a talk entitled Social networks: how social is a blog?

On the train back from Vienna I got to thinking about conferences. I’ve attended many. Over the years I’ve developed a good strategy for getting the most out of any conference. I follow three rules …

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Public and private partnerships

Published on April 28, 2006 in eGovernment. 0 Comments

One role of government is to allocate funding for infrastructure or projects that the private sector is unwilling or unable to support. The question is usually where do you draw the line.

For example, the vast majority of road construction is paid for by the government. However, when it comes to longer distance highways, the public sector has learned that motorists are often willing to pay a surcharge to travel on faster modern highways.

How well do the private and public sectors work together in Hungary? What kinds of public funding are able for private sector investments? Next week I’m running an afternoon panel discussion on the topic, in cooperation with the Hungarian Ministry of Informatics and Communications, so please follow the link for further information and be sure to attend.

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Opportunities for ICT suppliers in the public sector

Published on April 7, 2006 in eGovernment. 0 Comments

eGovernment implementation in all European countries is about to create a substantial market for ICT sector companies. Reasons for using ICTs in public sector are numerous. First, governments, at all levels, are urged to cut expenditures in order to reduce fiscal burden while they have to optimise access to information and “customer” care. Thus, governments have faced pressure to improve the professionalism with which government agencies are managed, notably through the use of ICTs.

Although governments seem committed to fulfil the implementation of eGovernment, they still lack accurate strategies to achieve the set-out targets. The first challenge for governments is to solve issues of horizontal fragmentation (policy areas) and vertical regionalization when setting-up eGovernment. Secondly, as governments are under constant pressure to reduce their expenditure, they often shift in favour of implementing open source software.

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The European Commission wants more interoperability between national eGovernment services

Published on March 27, 2006 in eGovernment. 0 Comments

The European Commission issued, on 13 February 2006, a communication on interoperability for pan-European eGovernment services (COM (2006) 45 final). The communication calls upon Member States to collaborate so that interoperability is realized at European level.

Although much progress has been made on eGovernment at all levels of public administration in Europe, the Commission is now paying attention to the development of the cross-border dimension of eGovernment. In its communication, the Commission argues for closer collaboration between administrations from different Member States to support the emergence of better services for European citizens and businesses and a more efficient implementation of EU policies.

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G2B best practices for the CEEC public administration

Published on February 20, 2006 in eGovernment. 0 Comments

In January 2006 the European Commission launched a project aiming at transferring the EU government-to-business e-services to the public administration bodies in Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.

TRANSFER-EAST is a Specific Support Actions aiming at favouring the transfer of learning, facilitating the exchange of e-government good practices and their transfer when appropriate and contributing to enhance the quality of e-government initiatives across Europe. TRANSFER-EAST will also address critical issues that might hamper the transfer of good experiences such as the legal aspects of the process of re-using successful developments among the different administrations, the ownership of the systems and their relationship with the public tendering procedures which the public administrations have to follow, and the various aspects of the public-private partnership undertaking notably tax services (corporate tax services, VAT declaration, social contribution for employees services), statistical services (registration of a new company, submission of statistical data) and other services (custom declarations, environmental permits, participation in public invitation to tender, etc.).

Continue reading ‘G2B best practices for the CEEC public administration’

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e-Passport testing

Published on January 19, 2006 in eGovernment. 0 Comments

The US Department of Homeland Security has published information that a live test of e-Passports, that contain contactless chips with biographic and biometric information and the readers that are capable of reading these e-Passports, began January 15, 2006 at Terminal G at San Francisco International Airport. This test is a collaborative effort between the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore that will run through April 15, 2006. Participants include citizens of Australia and New Zealand who have been issued the new e-Passports, Singapore Airlines crew and officials holding trial e-Passports and U.S. diplomatic and official e-Passport holders. The e-Passport contains the holder’s biographic information and a biometric identifier, in this case a digital photograph, embedded in a contactless chip set in the passport.

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Archive for the 'eGovernment' Category

Open Source Software (OSS) for Vienna’s local government

Interested in research cooperation on Digital Content?

Internet Street lacks Internet

The BITERAP cluster provides ERP support for public government in Slovakia

Three rules for getting the most out of any conference

Public and private partnerships

Opportunities for ICT suppliers in the public sector

The European Commission wants more interoperability between national eGovernment services

G2B best practices for the CEEC public administration

e-Passport testing

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