Thematic Session 3:Information Society Policy

andEmerging Services at Local Level

Rapporteur: Jaak AaviksooUniversity of Tartu, Estonia

How many Europes we have?

• Shall there be eEurope for members and eEurope for accessors and what could be their difference?

• And which of the two will be the most competitive knowledge economy in the world?

• Are we really different or are our problems different

11:00- 13:00 Topic: The Need for Information Society Policy for Local DevelopmentSpeakers:

• Andrea Mairate, Head of Unit, DG REGIO, European Commission

• Michael Niebel, DG INFSO, European Commission• Gareth Hughes, Executive Director, Eris@ • Ingrid Götzl, President, Telecities • Juris Mikelsons, Riga City Council, Latvia

16:30- 18:00 Topic: What Are The Elements of a "Best Practice" Project - A First ExchangeSpeakers:

• Dušan Keber, Minister of Health (Slovenia)• Peter Ponicky, Minister of Education, (Slovakia)• Mateu Hernández, Assistant Director of Barcelona Activa• Mel Proudfoot, Senior Director of Public Services, Oracle

EMEA

Role of Regional and Local Levels

• The roles of local and regional administrations in building the IS are important and shall be strengthened

• There is a need to combine and coordinate IS strategies on different levels

Demand vs Supply

• More attention shall be paid to the demand side - our ‘e’-s should address real needs

• We should analyze, evaluate and study these needs and provide feedback on how we perform

• We need more citizen-centered approaches• Technology is there to solve problems, not to

create problems

New Mentality

• Our ‘e’-s are different from non-’e’-s in the sense that ‘e’ changes the relation between providers and consumers

• E-government and e-services change the way how we manage the delivery of these services, it needs a different institutional culture

• ‘e’-s shall not replace but compliment the traditional channels of delivery

Fragmentation and duplication

• There is a huge number of efforts to go ‘e’ but these efforts are often fragmented and a lot of duplication takes place

• There are thousands of public and private providers who invent new bicycles 24 hours a day

• Extensive networking may be a solution

Infrastructure and Access

• We were seriously concerned about fair access of disadvantaged groups of people

• We welcomed the possibility of using Structural Funds to develop necessary telecommunication infrastructure (where markets fail to offer internet access as universal service)

Conclusion

IS is on its way – it will be there soon.

In North and South,

in West as well as in East

Our main task is to make this new society a better place to live in.

In West as well as in East.