ministerial egovernment conference 2007the ministerial egovernment conference 2007. it was the...

Lisbon, Portugal 19 – 21 September 2007

The Portuguese Presidency of the European Union and the European Commission jointly organised the eGovernment Conference 2007 entitled Reaping the benefits of eGovernment on 19-21 September 2007 in Lisbon (PT). The goals of the conference were to take stock of and build on the achievements to date, accelerate further development and set directions for the coming years in relation to the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan.

The focus of the 2007 conference on better public services for growth and jobs, participation and transparency, social impact and cohesion and effective and efficient administration, with special emphasis on the local and regional level, aimed to illustrate the importance of eGovernment as building blocks for better public services. The event also provided a platform for high-level political debate and facilitated the exchange of ideas. Close to 1,200 participants attended the Ministerial eGovernment Conference 2007. It was the fourth in a series, the first having taken place in Brussels (BE) in 2001, the second in Como (IT) in 2003 and the third in Manchester (UK) in 2005, bringing together ministers and senior officials responsible for eGovernment in EU Member States, leading academics, and CEOs and senior managers from European industry to share ideas, experiences, and lessons learned.

The exhibition of the 52 selected finalists for the European eGovernment Awards 2007 took place on 19-21 September alongside the conference with the aim to demonstrate success cases in the area of eGovernment, highlighting the progress achieved in this field in various European countries in order to encourage and increase the implementation of good practices related to electronic administration in other countries and to provide a networking opportunity for the finalists and conference participants, as well as a real forum for the exchange of ideas and experiences under the ePractice.eu slogan: meet > learn > share.

European Commission, DG Information Society and Media - eGovernment & CIP Operations

http://ec.europa.eu/egovernment Contact:E-mail: [email protected]: +32 - (0)2 296 41 14Fax: +32 - (0)2 296 17 40 or +32 - (0)2 295 10 71

Ministerial eGovernment Conference 2007

Ministerial eGovernment Conference Lisbon, Portugal

19 – 21 September 2007

Conference Proceedings

4TH MINISTERIAL eGOVERNMENT CONFERENCELISBON

http://

LEGAL NOTICE - By the Commission of the European Communities, Information Society and Media Directorate-General.Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on its behalf is responsible for the use which might be made of the information contained in the present publication. The European Commission is not responsible for the external websites referred to in the present publication.The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official European Commission view on the subject.

© European Communities, 2007Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged. Europe eGovernment Awards website: http://epractice.eu

For further information European Commission,DG Information Society and Media - eGovernment & CIP Operationshttp://ec.europa.eu/egovernment

Contact:E-mail: [email protected]: +32 - (0)2 296 41 14Fax: +32 - (0)2 296 17 40 or +32 - (0)2 295 10 71

Ministerial eGovernment Conference 2007 | 3

Acknowledgements .............................................................................................. 5

1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 7

2 The first day of the conference ..................................................................... 9 Welcome and keynote speeches ..................................................................................................... 10

Live debate: the contribution of eGovernment to growth and jobs .................................. 10

Regional and international dimensions ......................................................................................... 11

Ministerial Declaration ......................................................................................................................... 12

Stockholm Ministerial Conference 2009 ....................................................................................... 13

Web 2.0 for eGovernment: case studies ........................................................................................ 13

PS1 eGovernment for businesses .................................................................................................... 14

PS2 eGovernment for citizens .......................................................................................................... 15

PS3 Convenience and security in the EU ...................................................................................... 16

PL4 Social impact and cohesion ...................................................................................................... 17

PL5 Effective and efficient administrations ................................................................................. 18

European eGovernment Award winners 2007 ........................................................................... 19

3 The second day of the conference ............................................................. 25 PS4 Measuring progress ..................................................................................................................... 26

PS5 ICT for high-impact services in the Internal Market ......................................................... 27

PS6 Implementing challenges .......................................................................................................... 28

PL6 Participation and transparency ................................................................................................ 29

Keynote address: The Future of the World Wide Web ............................................................... 30

Conference summary and next steps towards 2020 ................................................................. 31

Annex: Speakers’ Bios ..................................................................................................................33

Table of contents

The European eGovernment Awards Consortium consists of:

CEPA (Center for European Public Administration), Danube University, Krems (AT)www.donau-uni.ac.at/verwaltung

DTI (Danish Technological Institute), Århus/Copenhagen (DK)www.teknologisk.dk

P.A.U. Education, Barcelona (ES)www.paueducation.com

RSO S.p.A., Rome (IT)www.rso.it

Acknowledgements

Special thanks for valuable assistance and comments in the preparation of this report to the European Commission DG Information Society and Media, in particular Dr Trond-Arne Undheim and Andrea Halmos, Executive Editors.

Thanks to Giovanna Galasso and Fiorenza Zanchi for compiling and writing this report.

Special thanks to Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen (Danish Technological Institute) for his valuable assistance in reporting the conference outcomes, and Jeremy Millard (Danish Technological Institute) for helping to report the conference interventions and for his important content and language support.

Thanks to Clotilde de Bellegarde and Manuel Trias (P.A.U. Education) for designing and publishing this report.

Furthermore, special thanks to all of the European eGovernment Awards 2007 consortium partners for their valuable assistance and comments throughout the process of writing this report.

Also, thanks to the experts who contributed their expertise throughout the conference and for being such supportive members of the team.

Finally, we are grateful to the European Commission DG Information Society and Media for entrusting the consortium with this opportunity.

European eGovernment 2005-2007 | 5

1 Introduction


The Portuguese Presidency of the European Union and the European Commission jointly organised the eGovernment Conference 2007 entitled Reaping the benefits of eGovernment1 on 19-21 September 2007 in Lisbon (PT). The goals of the conference were to take stock of and build on the achievements to date, accelerate further development and set directions for the coming years in relation to the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan.

The exhibition of the 52 selected finalists for the European eGovernment Awards 2007 took place on 19-21 September alongside the conference. The aim of the exhibition was to demonstrate success cases in the area of eGovernment, highlighting the progress achieved in this field in various European countries in order to encourage and increase the implementation of best practices related to electronic administration in other countries and to provide a networking opportunity for the finalists and conference participants, as well as a real forum for the exchange of ideas and experiences under the ePractice.eu slogan: meet > share > learn.

The event provided a platform for high-level political debate and facilitated the exchange of ideas. Close to 1,200 participants attended the Ministerial eGovernment Conference 2007. It was the fourth in a series, the first having taken place in Brussels (BE) in 2001, the second in Como (IT) in 2003 and the third in Manchester (UK) in 2005, bringing together ministers and senior officials responsible for eGovernment in EU Member States, leading academics, and CEOs and senior managers from European industry to share ideas, experiences, and lessons learned.

In 2001, the focus was on what Commissioner Liikanen called getting people “online, not inline”. This emphasis on the automation of service delivery led to the early creation of key eGovernment services in priority areas such as tax and customs.

By 2003, the priorities in Como had matured to the consideration of how eGovernment could obtain key political commitment and thus contribute in three key areas: The Role of eGovernment for European Competitiveness, A Better Life for European Citizens, and European, Central and Local Government eCooperation.

The major shift in emphasis in 2005 was towards the i2010 Strategy, with the need for a fundamental transformation of the way that government works in delivering services to citizens, and this transformation entails placing citizens at the heart of the construction of eGovernment, rather then at the receiving end of services that, in the past, have often been designed with the administration in mind.

The focus of the 2007 conference on better public services for growth and jobs, participation and transparency, social impact and cohesion and effective and efficient administration, with special emphasis on the local and regional level, aimed to illustrate the importance of eGovernment as building blocks for better public services.

Interoperability among Member States, reduction of administrative bureaucracy, public involvement in political processes and their increased transparency were unanimously approved as the main policy priorities for the coming years to push for the improvement of public services available to citizens and enterprises through the use of ICT.

1 Presentations, including photographs and video files, can be downloaded from the conference website at: www.megovconf-lisbon.gov.pt

2 The first day of the conference


The first day of the conference2, on Thursday 20 September, was characterised by plenary and parallel sessions, the presentation of the Ministerial Declaration and, at the end of the day, by the announcement of the eGovernment Awards, with prizes being presented to the winners.

Welcome and keynote speeches: In the opening session, European Commission Vice-President Siim Kallas highlighted the importance of eGovernment as building blocks for better public services and presented the goals of the conference to take stock of and build on the achievements to date, accelerate further development and set directions for the coming years. Minister of the Presidency (PT) Pedro Silva Pereira and José Sócrates, Portugal’s Prime Minister, stressed the contribution of eGovernment to the achievement of the goals set out in the Lisbon Strategy and the latest Portuguese achievements in the field of eGovernment.

In a lively debate, political and business personalities discussed the contribution of eGovernment to growth and jobs. This was followed by a plenary session on the regional and international dimensions of eGovernment, focused on some leading world examples of the implementation of eGovernment and the means of transferring knowledge and lessons learned to other countries.

At the end of the first morning, Minister Pedro Silva Pereira presented the Ministerial Declaration on eGovernment, unanimously approved by ministers at a meeting the previous day, and Sweden’s Minister of Finance, Mats Odell, announced the Stockholm (SE) Ministerial eGovernment 2009 Conference.

The subsequent session on Web 2.0 for eGovernment examined case studies in the main areas in which Web 2.0 applications can generate change in public services, and also presented some recommendations on how to implement these initiatives.

The three afternoon parallel sessions dealt with the following topics:

• eGovernment for business (PS1)

• eGovernment for citizens (PS2)

• Convenience and security in the EU (PS3)

Following the parallel sessions, the plenary session on Social impact and cohesion examined how ICT-enabled public services should be delivered to those at risk of being left behind and explored the beneficial impact of inclusive eGovernment on society. Afterwards, the plenary session on Effective and efficient administrations brought together speakers who already had valuable lessons to share with other European administrations.

The European eGovernment Awards Ceremony was the final event of the first conference day. Each winner was presented with the European Award Trophy by the Vice-President of the European Commission, Siim Kallas, Minister Pedro Silva Pereira of the Portuguese Presidency, the Chair of this year’s awards jury, Rector Heinrich Kern, from Danube University Krems (AT), and the Chair of the online voting committee, Christine Leitner, from the European Awards Consortium (Center for European Public Administration, Danube University Krems).

2 See annex or www.megovconf-lisbon.gov.pt


10 | Ministerial eGovernment Conference 2007

Welcome and keynote speech

The opening of the 4th Ministerial eGovernment Conference was presided over by Maria Elisa Domingues (a journalist with Portuguese public television), together with Pedro Silva Pereira (Minister of the Presidency, Portugal). He highlighted the conference as one of the significant events of the Portuguese presidency, showcasing the direct impact that eGovernment has on European economies and citizens, as well as its contribution to the achievement of the goals set out in the Lisbon Strategy. Minister Pereira also highlighted the latest Portuguese achievements in the field of eGovernment, including a new citizens card, the SIMPLEX programme to simplify public administrations and processes, resulting in a gateway for citizens with 820 operations and 1,130 services, as well as a gateway for businesses with 450 operations and 25 services.

In his welcome to the 1,200 or so participants attending the event, Siim Kallas (European Commission Vice-President, Commissioner for Administrative Affairs, Audit and Anti-Fraud) emphasised the important work currently being done in the Member States and at local, regional and national level, as well as by the European Commission following the 2005 Manchester Declaration, through its eGovernment action plan and the “Strategy for information and communication technology framework for 2010”. The focus on better public services for growth and jobs, participation and transparency, social impact and cohesion and effective and efficient administration with special emphasis on the local and regional level aims to illustrate the importance of eGovernment as building blocks for better public services. The goals of the Conference were to take stock of and build on the achievements to date, thereby accelerating further development and setting directions for the coming years, and emphasising the opportunity provided by the event to facilitate high-level political debate and the exchange of ideas.

José Sócrates, Portugal’s Prime Minister, presented eGovernment as a priority for the EU presidency and the Portuguese Government. He focused on eGovernment and the modernisation of public administration: “No better means than eGovernment to create prestigious and modern administration”. He highlighted the great progress made by the Portuguese Government in implementing eGovernment initiatives in the past two years and noted that Europe must maintain leadership in the eGovernment field, as it is a guarantee for citizens and a way forward for modern society. He explained that it is up to the states to show the way forward and that they also have to invest in the area of knowledge to stay at the forefront, creating more efficient and transparent administrations that are very close to citizens and companies. “Europe must continue in the forefront of eGovernment and bring more transparency and efficiency in its relations with the people”, concluded the prime minister.

Live debate: the contribution of eGovernment to growth and jobs

Moderated by Andrea Di Maio, Vice President, eGovernment, Gartner

Nikolay Vassilev, Ministry of State Administration and Administrative Reform, Bulgaria

João Tiago Silveira, Secretary of State for Justice, Ministry of Justice, Portugal

Professor Jane E. Fountain, National Center for Digital Government, USA

Peter Holmes, Director of Operations, Government – Europe, Africa & Latin America, Accenture

Art de Geus, Deputy Secretary-General, OECD

In a lively debate, political and business personalities discussed the contribution of eGovernment to growth and jobs. They explored how public services can help empower businesses and citizens and reduce their administrative burden, thus contributing to

Public services: business and citizens empowerment



realising the Lisbon Agenda. The session centred on three key questions: what makes a good public service, whether a link exists between economic growth and good public services, and what Europe should do next to ensure the development of good public services.

The debate showed that more dynamic, competitive and healthy socio-economic environments require effort and, at this stage, the discussion showed how difficult it is to directly link eGovernment and economic growth. It was also highlighted that while, on one hand, one should take into consideration the fact that productivity gains may result in initial job losses, on the other hand, eGovernment has a vital strategic role in assisting policies related to the promotion of growth. In other words, eGovernment should act as a lever for implementing wider growth policies, and appropriate measures need to be designed for this, with profit not necessarily always being appropriate. For example, during the debate it was suggested that performance indicators for public services could be developed as a surrogate growth measure. The reason given for this was that the benefits of better services are not always tangible and need to be made clear.

For the future, a better understanding of the needs of SMEs and their networks is essential. The creation of appropriate eGovernment solutions, as well as policies, must take these needs into account. It is also necessary to ensure the appropriate promotion of solutions and ICT skills to ensure take-up, and this will require the implementation of the right policies.

Regional and international dimensions

The local and regional dimension Giuseppe Paruolo, Chair of the Eurocities Knowledge Society Forum

eGov Today and Tomorrow Pierre Liautaud, Vice President, Western Europe, Microsoft

Africa - EU sharing good practices in eGovernment services José Brito, Minister of Economy, Development and Competitiveness of Cape Verde LEE Boon Yang, Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, Singapore

The session focused on some leading world examples of the implementation of eGovernment, and the means of transferring the knowledge and lessons learned to other countries.

Giuseppe Paruolo, Chair of the Eurocities Knowledge Society Forum, showed how the past decades have proven that local administrations and cities can play a major role in eGovernment innovation. It is therefore appropriate to standardise services at the local level and, at the same time, make them homogeneous across all European cities. There is a need to exchange good practices and develop common approaches and service platforms through cooperation among European cities to ensure a real bottom-up, integrative approach.

The speakers all referred to innovative ways, not only of reducing the digital divide, but also of creating more efficient, effective, transparent and accountable public services.

Pierre Liautaud, Vice President, Western Europe, Microsoft, illustrated the power of innovation for local, regional and intergovernmental organisations by highlighting a number of good practices from across Europe.

José Brito, Minister of Economy, Development and Competitiveness of Cape Verde, presented the case of Cape Verde, which, through its experience in building an information society in support of its agenda for socio-economic transformation, illustrated a different dimension of eGovernment. The group of islands was inspired by

Standardised and homogeneous local services

Practice exchange

Innovation for efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, accountabilitys

Local and international examples

eGovernment and economic growth

eGovernment and growth policies



the European eGovernment policy agenda to reach its objectives of increased quality of life for citizens and the modernisation of the country.

Lee Boon Yang, Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, Singapore, showed how in Singapore a systematic approach to establish eGovernment services has facilitated and simplified citizens’ interactions with government. These two examples also provide insights into the sharing of practical eGovernment experiences internationally.

Ministerial Declaration

Pedro Silva Pereira, Minister of the Presidency, Portugal

Presenting the 2007 eGovernment Ministerial Declaration, Pedro Sliva Pereira, Minister of the Portuguese Presidency, emphasised that the declaration is, above all, preparation for the future. It also addresses the need for continuity with past and current activities, and traces its roots back to the Lisbon Strategy.

The declaration defines future priorities, in particular interoperability and the reduction of administrative costs, and presents an agenda that identifies concrete domains for cooperation and operational actions.

The new ministerial declaration strengthens the commitments of the Member States in proceeding with developments within this scope, focusing upon the following priorities:

• Strengthen the European dimension through interoperability between Member States;

• Reduce the administrative load and consequently the administrative costs, allowing for an efficient and effective interaction between public administrations and the citizens;

• Guarantee and ensure eGovernment services to all the citizens, especially in the case of the least economically and socially privileged;

• Involve citizens in political processes and increase procedural transparency;

• With respect to interoperability, Member States shall, until the end of 2008, establish new priorities for high impact services for the citizens, which can be developed over the whole of Europe with the aid of community programmes;

• Member States unanimously strengthen their commitment to continue the improvement of public services available to the citizens and to enterprises through the use of ICT.

The European Ministers equally recognised the need to share knowledge and good practices, and to strengthen cooperation with other countries, particularly with African states, since electronic government becomes ever more relevant at an international level.

The ministerial declaration was unanimously approved by the ministers of the Member States of the European Union, EU candidate countries and members of EFTA.

Minister Pereira further stressed that the declaration is much more than a simple political statement, as it also establishes a route for long-term implementation, which itself will be further enhanced through increased EU cooperation. The very high ambition of the declaration reveals the importance of the political willingness of all EU stakeholders, including politicians, with the goal of leading to a more competitive EU at the service of citizens and companies.

Continuity and future priorities

Cross-border interoperability

Administrative burden reduction

Inclusive eGovernment

Transparency and democratic engagement



Stockholm Ministerial Conference 2009

Mats Odell, Minister for Local Government and Financial Markets, Ministry of Finance, Sweden

Mats Odell, Minister for Local Government and Financial Markets, Ministry of Finance (Sweden), emphasised that Sweden is very pleased to be able to host the next eGovernment conference in 2009. Minister Odell also highlighted the fact that Sweden has extensive experience in the implementation of successful eGovernment. In future, this will need to evolve towards less centralisation and improved cooperation at local, national and international levels. The conference will be organised during the Swedish Presidency of the European Union together with the European Commission.

“How will we make the Internal Market in the future? Member States must take an active part in this discussion”. Mr Odell focused on the implementation of the EU Directive on Services in the Internal Market, and referred especially to Article 8 of the directive, according to which Member States must ensure the electronic processing of transactions by means of a point of single contact and with the relevant competent authorities by 2009. In order to accomplish this and to properly implement the directive, Minister Odell stressed the fact that it is important that Member States are interoperable and cooperate among themelves.

On the ministerial declaration, Minister Odell emphasised that even more cooperation will be required to achieve it. He also stressed that the integration of public authorities in Europe will happen despite differences in language, culture and behaviour. Differences will not disappear, but will facilitate a multi-cultural way of life.

Web 2.0 for eGovernment: case studies

David Osimo, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies

In the last three years, a new set of Internet-based applications has emerged, based on the proactive role of the user: blogs, wikis, social networking, social bookmarking, etc., commonly known under the term ‘Web 2.0’.

While the impact of these applications is already visible in the social and private activities of people, Web 2.0 provides important opportunities for making public services more efficient and effective.

The session highlighted six main areas in which Web 2.0 applications can generate change in public services, both in the internal functioning of these services as well as in their relation to citizens: regulation, cross-agency collaboration, and knowledge management (in the back-office); service delivery, eParticipation and law enforcement (in the front-office). Real-life cases were used to illustrate some of these changes. In the Peer-to-Patent project, run by the US Patent Office, faster processes and better-informed decisions have resulted from opening up the early stage of the evaluation process to the cooperative effort of external experts. The platform Intellipedia uses the Wikipedia software and approach to enhance cooperation between 16 US intelligence agencies, thus avoiding the effects of traditional ‘silo’ storage of information and reducing information bottlenecks. Other examples included PatientOpinion.org, a website on which patients publicly share their comments and feedback on the treatment received from hospitals, enabling health service providers to better understand user needs and monitor service quality. Another UK example highlighted was the ePetitions system incorporated in the prime minister’s website but run by mysociety.org (an NGO), which stimulates citizen participation (one petition was signed by nearly 2 million citizens). An example of law enforcement is the MyBikeLane.org project (launched by a single cyclist in the US), whereby citizens report bicycle lane violations by publishing photographs and locating them on GoogleMaps.

Less centralisation

Improved cooperation

Differences for a multi-cultural way of life



The session suggested that government should consider implementing Web 2.0 initiatives because these can help achieve the long-desired goals of user-oriented, simple and effective public services. However, these are achieved not by simply using the technologies (blogs, wikis), but mainly by adopting the attitude of Web 2.0 (users as providers, open content, transparency).

The session also presented some recommendations by Web 2.0 experts on how to implement these initiatives. Web 2.0 initiatives can be undertaken in partnership with users and civil society; the more open public data become, the more citizens and civil society can leverage them to provide services of public value; users’ feedback should be listened to and swiftly acted upon. However, there are risks related to opening up these processes, and therefore experimentation is more easily started in back-office activities.

Web 2.0 is rooted in long-term societal change, and users will increasingly become familiar with these technologies. The examples showed how individual citizens, civil servants and civil society organisations already apply Web 2.0 in public services, using free and open technology solutions. Therefore, the decision to act or not no longer lies only with the government, but engagement is fundamental to ensure that these trends lead to impacts consistent with the public interest.

PS1 eGovernment for businesses

Chair: Zoltan Somodi, Secretary of State for Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Romania

Starting a business; making business across EU borders Harald Lemke, Secretary of State, State Commissioner for eGovernment and IT, Department of Finance, Department of the Interior, State of Hesse (Germany)

The challenges of interoperability delivering European eGovernment Services Francisco Garcia Moran, Director General, European Commission, Directorate-General for Informatics

eGovernment for a better business environment Jan Muehlfeit, Chairman, Microsoft Europe

This session focused on the EC Services Directive (2006/123/EC) and its implications in terms of the pan-European eGovernment services to be put in place in order to achieve a Single Market for services in the European Union. The key issue, as introduced by the Chair, Zoltan Somodi (Secretary of State, ICT Ministry, Romania), is the interoperability of ePublic Services across the EU.

For Jan Muehlfeit (Chairman, Microsoft Europe), while some progress has been achieved in some countries, there are still differences in capacity, uptake and impact of those services in Europe. What the IT industry, together with governments in Europe, can do is move from capability building to real impact and from infrastructure and basic services to ICT-enabled business transformation. It is essential to encourage inter-departmental process sharing and integration based on business cases, share data and IT services among departments, and foster public confidence in eServices. Impact can be measured through citizen satisfaction, take-up, cost reduction, and productivity improvements.

Harald Lemke (State Commissioner for eGovernment & IT, Germany) reviewed the long path followed over many years towards EU market integration, and stressed the difficulties facing the implementation of the Service Directive in EU Member States and more specifically in a federal state like Germany. Additional conflicts can arise from ICT, which exposes the collision between globalisation, on the one hand, and virtualisation of business, on the other.

Pan-European eGovernment services - Interoperability

From capacity building to real impact

ICT complexity and risks

User-oriented eGovernment by adopting Web 2.0 attitude



Francisco Garcia Moran (EC Directorate-General Informatics) presented the IDABC Programme for a European Interoperability Framework, addressing technical, semantic, and organisational interoperability issues. The work is being undertaken by IDABC projects, but pressing future challenges remain. Multilingual accessibility, access by disabled or digitally agnostic people, access to base registers, technical standardisation, authorisation cross-certification, transaction certification, and eSignature recognition are among the major interoperability issues still to be resolved. All these limits and issues outstanding were clearly depicted to the audience through examples of cross-border life/businesses events. When talking about technical, semantic, and organisational interoperability, Garcia Moran showed for each of these the ongoing activities and future challenges. Clearly, strong leadership and guidelines are also needed to ensure the effective implementation of the directive.

PS2 eGovernment for citizens

Chair: Vasileios Andronopoulos, General Secretary of Public Administration and eGovernment, Greece

Improving interaction between administrations and citizens Gregor Virant, Minister of Public Administration, Slovenia

The eCitizen Charter as an instrument to boost eGovernment and stimulate eInclusion Matt Poelmans, Director, eCitizen Programme, ICTU, the Netherlands

The Citizens Information for All Project – An Irish Governmental approach Leonie Lunny, Chief Executive, Citizens Information Board

Using examples of successful implementation of eGovernment services for citizens, this session explored how the relationship between citizens and government is changing. Different, but complementary, approaches focused on citizen-friendly service delivery were presented. The need to redefine and integrate governmental organisation and resources to offer better services to users in a more efficient way was stressed during the session. Equally important is the need to redefine the relationship between government and citizens, to offer different communication channels (whether electronic or not) and to take the citizens’ needs into account when designing services.

Vasileios Andronopoulos, General Secretary of Public Administration and eGovernment (Greece) presented the Greek Citizen Service Centres, a model that tries to create a single-state experience for citizens, different to the traditional approach in which each government department interacts with citizens in its own way. In this sense, CSCs are extensions of the Greek state, and citizens can request and obtain the required service (e.g. birth certificates, taxes, various professional permits, etc.) at these centres through a single point-of-service with case managers.

Dr Gregor Virant, Minister of Public Administration (Slovenia) highlighted the need to renew processes, rather than simply integrating IT systems, and remove administrative burdens. To this end, Slovenia has put in place an anti-bureaucracy filter, which comes into play when a new law is passed by undertaking an impact analysis of any additional bureaucratic burden being imposed, and employing a dedicated team of experts to reshape the law should the impact analysis show an increase in bureaucracy and administrative burden. Public consultation for generating ideas also plays an important role, as well as for the removal of administrative burdens. eGovernment suggestions from Slovenia include one-stop access to services, a “life situations” approach and a focus on high impact, simple and user-friendly services in which the back-office is as important as the front-office.

Matt Poelmans, Director, eCitizen Programme, ICTU (the Netherlands) complemented these views with a presentation of the e-Citizen charter, a Dutch initiative consisting of 10 quality standards that define the digital relationship between citizen and government (in the fields of information exchange, service delivery and political participation). These

Greece: single-state experience for citizens

Slovenia: anti-bureaucracy filter One-stop-shop

Netherlands: e-Citizen charter – quality standards Interoperable and integrated services

Changes in citizens/ government relationship

Better & more efficient services

“Is there a need for a more common infrastructure?”

“How to link up IT systems together”

“How to agree on the meaning of the information to be exchanged”

“Who has access to which information under which conditions?” Francisco Garcia Moran



standards are formulated as rights to which citizens are entitled, and obligations on government bodies, illustrating the need for quality standards for interaction between citizens/businesses and government and the need to ensure that citizens receive the same minimum high quality service, regardless of the government department providing it. Additionally, through the use of quality standards, the organisational interoperability and integration of processes run by different government departments, necessary to offer unified services, become much easier.

Leonie Lunny, Chief Executive, Citizens Information Board (Ireland) presented the Citizens Information project, an information resource on social and public services in Ireland for the general public and information and service providers. The Irish approach is a holistic one in which a “life events” view allows the user to see the range of services appropriate to particular life events. Three different channels (website, telephone, and face-to-face) are used to ensure that all citizens without exception have access to services, thereby lessening the digital divide. Innovative approaches (e.g. mobile telephony, digital television) need to be explored and developed to meet the needs of marginalised groups.

PS3 Convenience and security in the EU

Chair: Constantijn van Oranje-Nassau, Senior Advisor to RAND Europe

Reinhard Posch, CIO Federal Government, Austria Robert Verrue, Director General, Taxation & Customs Union, European Commission Frank Paul, Directorate General of Justice, Freedom and Security, European Commission

What is the added value of EU actions in the area of security and reducing administrative burden? The examples presented during this session on electronic identity management (eIDM), border management and customs and taxation were very different in terms of policy areas, objectives, drivers, and level of integration. The focus, however, was the same: making pan-European eGovernment a reality.

The Chair, Constantijn van Oranje-Nassau, Senior Advisor to RAND Europe, explored the incentives for current stakeholders to develop cross-border and even pan-European services, for example, healthcare services and supporting infrastructures such as a common federated eIDM structure. The session considered the barriers: lack of incentives at national level to develop Pan-European eGovernment Services (PEGS), lack of trust between public authorities, the complexity of interconnection and interoperability, the persistence of legacy systems, and concerns over privacy and security. Incentives were also examined: the need to comply with the requirements of the Services Directive, the benefits of administrative burden reduction, the successful implementation of a large-scale eIDM pilot, and support provided for overall mobility. An outlook for Europe beyond 2015 was presented and, in this context, it was strongly felt that a common European authentication identifier is needed, and that the way to achieve it is to keep things simple.

Reinhard Posch, CIO Federal Government (Austria), focused on the need for eID in all sectors from eGovernment to eProcurement to eHealth, as well as the private sector. He also presented the overall experience arising from Austria, where all main applications are now using eID. For a European eID, rather than a centralised approach, an interoperable approach would be more suitable. Mr Posch said that the European eID roadmap for “all European citizens, businesses and administration by 2010 shall benefit from secure means of electronic identification that maximise user convenience while respecting data protection regulation”.

Robert Verrue, Director General, Taxation & Customs Union, European Commission, outlined the major transformation of the Community customs processes aiming to streamline and simplify these practices across the Member States. Incentives can clearly be seen in terms of the fight against fraud and counterfeit goods, trade facilitation, the reduction of compliance costs, and greater impact in addressing security and safety risks. In fact, the number of trade transactions is so high that only eCustoms can provide

Security and administrative burden reduction

Toward PEGS overcoming barriers

European eID roadmap

More interoperable eID

Ireland: “life-events” and Multi-channels Innovation for inclusion

Interoperable and trans-European eCustoms solutions



solutions. There is a growing need for trans-European systems, and this is now being addressed by the decision to roll out an ambitious portfolio of automated customs systems in the Community up to 2013, building on momentum gained since the 1980s. A new legal environment for EU customs needs to be based on collaboration and cooperation among different Member States in order to accomplish the right level of interconnectivity.

Frank Paul, Directorate General of Justice, Freedom and Security, European Commission, described how biometric systems are being introduced as part of the response to the challenges of terrorism, organised crime and illegal immigration within the framework of the EU biometrics border control operation. Individuals changing identities is the main problem. Mr Paul also explained how biometrics could, in the longer term, be used as a tool to enhance security; but, to fully achieve this, the EU must ensure that its biometric systems are interoperable with others worldwide. Wherever biometrics are used, solutions must be found to incorporate them efficiently into workflows and physical environments. Data security must be guaranteed during biometric enrolment and during storage.

PL4 Social impact and cohesion

Multi-channel delivery of integrated services Anabela Pedroso, President of A.M.A. (Agency for Public Service Modernisation), Portugal

Gillian Merron, Cabinet Office Minister and Minister for the East Midlands, United Kingdom

Digital Divide and Social Exclusion Mogens Schmidt, Deputy Assistant Director-General, UNESCO

The extent to which eGovernment enhances or detracts from social inclusion, whether in Europe, globally or in developing countries, was discussed during this session from three contrasting points of view.

Anabela Pedroso, President of A.M.A. - Agency for Public Service Modernisation (Portugal), explained how the Portuguese administration embarked on a new culture of public service in 1999. At the time, citizens and businesses were asked about what they really wanted from public services, and the answer was to have very little interaction with governments, and simplicity (also in terms of having the same answer), quality and services from the government regardless of the point of access. The response was to establish citizen one-stop-shop centres as service supermarkets, manned by friendly and efficient staff seamlessly using all channels: face-to-face, telephone, and Internet. A focus on life events and seeing the world as the user sees it has been found to be very successful, and is starting to change the image and indeed the role of the public administration. This approach has been applied succesfully in big cities and small villages with different wealth levels, showing that eGovernment can positively contribute to social inclusion.

Gillian Merron, Cabinet Office Minister and Minister for the East Midlands, United Kingdom, described how a new type of politics and citizen-government inter-relation is coming alive in the United Kingdom. Only that week, a number of regional citizen panels linked to the prime minister were conducted into the future of the health service, using ePetitions, blogs and Facebook. Citizen expectations are changing fast, and many more, even the ICT-illiterate, expect to be able to say, when dealing with government, “is that really all I have to do?!” Ensuring that this is the response, and making sure that services are linked across government, means that our vision must be built around the citizen. Even those who do not use the technology must expect to get better e-services because someone does so on their behalf. In this sense, eGovernment can improve social inclusion even for those not using ICT.

Mogens Schmidt, Deputy Assistant Director-General, UNESCO, gave a global and UNESCO perspective, according to which eGovernment may be a dilemma as far as the digital divide is concerned. Is it just those who have access to ICT and the skills to use it

Fully interoperable biometric systems to enhance security

eGovernment and social inclusion: three points of view:

Citizen one-stop-shop centres

Better and easy eServices, linked across government, for all

User/community-centred focus on fighting social exclusion



who benefit? eGovernment must be seen within the broader perspective of education, human rights and good governance. If a user- and community-centred focus is adopted, eGovernment promotes good governance and can be an essential tool in fighting social inclusion For example, Africa now has the fastest mobile phone growth rate in the world, and is becoming very innovative in very simple but highly effective solutions (such as appointment and deadline reminders), from which Europe can learn.

PL5 Effective and efficient administrations

How to simplify the public sector in Europe to the benefit of businesses and citizens Emilie McCabe, General Manager, Global Public Sector, IBM

Reducing administrative burden in Europe Harry van Zon, Dutch Board on Administrative Burdens (ACTAL), the Netherlands

Citizen-centric online transformation – My eGovernment Heidi Grande-Røys, Ministry of Government Administration and Reform, Norway

Making government more efficient and effective (E&E) is a main driver of eGovernment across Europe. Increased E&E could boost the EU25 GDP by €166 billion by 2010 and many European administrations already have valuable lessons to share with others.

Emilie McCabe, General Manager, Global Public Sector, IBM, presented eGovernment as an “innovative journey” consisting of five waves, from online, through interactive, integrated, extended and, finally, collaborative government, and compared this evolution with that experienced by the private sector some time ago. The presentation also highlighted ways to maximise the value of IT investments, pointing out that this can be done only by coordinating change in three areas, including business process, information infrastructures and organisational culture.

Harry van Zon, Director of Innovation and Public Sector Information Policy for the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (the Netherlands), introduced the general approach to eGovernment in the Netherlands as consisting of a virtual infrastructure including authentication (exemplified by the DigiD project), Personal Number (BSN) and Company Number (BIN), key registers, standardisation within an interoperability framework, and eAccess (overheid.nl, personal Internet page). Mr van Zon also highlighted key points from a recent survey on the expectations of citizens and business concerning a more user-friendly government: that there should be “no wrong door”, that access to the right information should be easy, and that there should be one-off data delivery, an understandable language, fast delivery, and taking matters seriously. It was also emphasised that improving service delivery is not merely about ICT, but also about cultural change, reorganisation and, above all, cooperation between government and its constituency of citizens and businesses.

Heidi Grande-Røys, Ministry of Government Administration and Reform (Norway), described a number of projects and strategies in Norway for digital inclusion, privacy and citizen-centricity. Citizens are demanding high quality services at low cost, and ICT is playing an increasingly important role in providing this. The differences between the public and the private sectors, with the former serving users (citizens, businesses), and the latter serving customers, mean that the public sector serves peoples’ interests rather than its own. Crucial in this is providing one-stop-shop solutions for citizens and businesses (implemented respectively by the Mypage and Altinn portals in Norway), thus getting away from government’s traditional “silo” structure approach in dealing with users who previously had to contact hundreds of different agencies. This has been achieved by establishing a government-wide ICT architecture, which bridges the gap between the different ICT solutions used in the public sector and enables openness, partnering and sharing between agencies. Also essential in this context is the protection of user privacy, and this has been achieved by developing a simple electronic unique identification for eID.

Citizen-centricity: high quality services at low cost

One-stop-shop solutions: open, partnering, sharing agencies

User-friendly government

Service delivery: cooperation between government, citizens, businesses

E&E: sharing experience across Europe

eGovernment: online, interactive, integrated, extended, collaborative

Maximise IT investments



European eGovernment Award winners 2007

The European eGovernment Awards Ceremony was the final event of the first day. The crème de la crème in European eGovernment were announced. HoReCa1, the Hotel Restaurant Café licences one-stop-shop from the Netherlands, Mypage from Norway, Besancon.clic from France and DVDV, the German Administration Services Directory, each picked up one of the prestigious awards celebrating Europe’s most innovative public services. The prize for the most inspiring good practice went to OPLS, the Online Police Station in Italy, as a result of the public vote.

The winners were each presented with the prestigious European eGovernment Award Trophy by Siim Kallas, European Commission Vice-President, Commissioner for Administrative Affairs, Audit and Anti-Fraud, Minister Silva Pereira of the Portuguese Presidency, the Chair of jury for this year’s event, Rector Heinrich Kern, from Danube University Krems (Austria), and the Chair of the online voting committee, Christine Leitner, from the European Awards Consortium (Center for European Public Administration, Danube University Krems).

Award candidate projects were assessed for innovativeness and effective management, real practice results and impact, and relevance and transferability in four categories:

@ Better public services for growth and jobs

@ Participation and transparency

@ Social impact and cohesion

@ Effective and efficient administration

@ Public prize: Most inspiring good practice

52 good practices

4 themes

Innovativeness and effective management



@ Better public services for growth and jobs

Online public services directly contributing to the economic growth and job creation strategy of the European Union (known as the Lisbon Agenda). Won by: HoReCa1 – one-stop-shop for Hotel Resturant Café licences submitted by the Economic Development Department of the City of Amsterdam (the Netherlands)

HoReCa13 (www.amsterdam.nl/horeca) is a one-stop-shop for the hotel, restaurant, café and bar licences necessary in Amsterdam. Through HoReCa1, entrepreneurs can easily find out which selection of 40 governmental documents has to be obtained by answering 20 questions and filling out a single form for seven local licences required in the city, resulting in €1,506 in savings per applicant. This project is an excellent example of how to promote new SMEs in the service sector through the integration of 18 different national procedures governing business development. Start-up costs for the project in 2006 were €350,000.

HoReCa1 lowers the barriers to setting up a small company in the service sector. By reducing administrative burden and providing concrete data showing cost savings, by service providers and service users, the project ensures that these savings make a direct impact on economic growth and job creation. The potential for transferring the experience of this project to others is very high because HoReCa1 has an accessible, functional design. An implementation guide, toolkit and blueprints complement the service offering.

Project Acronym

1-stop-shop for Hotel Restaurant Café licences - HoReCa1Website

http://www.amsterdam.nl/horecaContact details

Maurice van Ervene e-mail: [email protected]

3 http://www.epractice.eu/cases/horeca1

Better public services for growth and jobss

Simplification and one-stop-shop reduces the administrative burden for bars, hotels, and restaurants in Amsterdam



@ Participation and transparency

Interactive initiatives that empower citizens and business to influence open government, policy-making and the way in which public administrations operate and deliver services. Won by: Mypage, submitted by Norge.no (Norway).

Mypage4 (www.norge.no) is a self-service citizen portal. It currently offers more than 200 services for citizens, and more than 200,000 users registered on the portal within four months of its launch in December 2006. It is a user-defined and secured citizen portal, on which users can carry out personalised public eServices in one place and on demand. Citizens can also control information about themselves held by various public authorities. The two most popular transaction services had approximately 60,000 users each, with “address information” and “property information” receiving more than 500,000 and 230,000 visitors respectively. The goal is to have all relevant services from all levels of administration available through Mypage by the end of 2009. Mypage is a good example of interoperable architecture that supports a self-service solution.

Mypage enables every Norwegian citizen to access, control and, if necessary, correct his or her own personal data across 80 websites (later to be expanded to 500). In so doing, Mypage hands power back to the users of government services. The impact on participation and transparency is very high. Through high-level political commitment, the web portal accesses agencies across many different areas of government. The back-office changes needed to do this, breaking down isolated information silos, also stimulate significant process efficiencies. Mypage could be replicated in many European countries.

Project Acronym

Mypage Self-service Citizen’s Portal MypageWebsite

www.norge.no www.norway.no Contact details

Tor Alvik e-mail: [email protected]

Stein Myrseth e-mail: [email protected]

4 http://www.epractice.eu/cases/mypage



@ Social impact and cohesion

Public service initiatives contributing to the improvement of the social environment and social cohesion. Services can be local, national, or European, user-oriented, inclusive, and interoperable. Won by: Besancon.clic, submitted by the City of Besançon (France).

Besancon.clic5 (www.besancon.fr) has been reducing the digital gap by financing IT equipment in the region. Computers donated by firms have been rebuilt in a centre for disabled workers. Recipients have included primary schools and hospitals, associations, retirement homes and, since 2006, some schools in Senegal, through the distribution of an eBook pack to all of the pupils in the third year of primary school (CE2). Common training courses between Besançon and Dakar universities are currently being considered, as well as an exchange network. The eBook pack consists of a computer with a digital workspace and the installation of public multimedia access points in every neighbourhood. Computers use open source software, which is downloaded from servers located either in the data processing department of the city council or in schools for external sites. The cost of the project so far is €350,000.

Besancon.clic has enabled a reduction of the digital gap at the local level in a French region by increasing the ICT skills of pupils and parents in their own environment. The case fully exploits the strengths of different service delivery channels. Besancon.clic provides jobs in a local centre for the disabled by recycling used computer equipment. For the considerable impacts achieved, this case is very low cost, showing what can be done by local partnerships amongst public, private and civil actors. The experience can be transferred, for example, it is already bringing benefits to a project in Senegal, West Africa.

Project Acronym

Besancon.clic Besac.clicWebsite

http://www.besancon.fr/besanconclic Contact details

Jean-Louis Fousseret e-mail: [email protected]

François Pierson e-mail: [email protected]

5 http://www.epractice.eu/cases/besacclic



@ Effective and efficient administration

Innovation in or re-organisation of services and processes, making administrations more efficient and effective and reducing administrative burden. Won by: the German Administration Services Directory, submitted by the Senator for Finances in the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (Germany)

The German Administration Services Directory6 (www.finanzen.bremen.de/info/egovernment) lists electronically available eGovernment services. This fulfils an important need in terms of creating a secure and reliable communication infrastructure, based exclusively on open Internet protocols and allowing for cross-organisational, paperless processes. Since 1 January, it has helped more than 5,200 German civil registration agencies save more than €1 million per month. Worldwide, it is one of the first and largest standardised Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) implementations in the government area, and was made possible through unique cooperation between the various levels of government and sectors in Germany. In addition, a nationwide standardised infrastructure with three new services is being implemented, with 11 more services in the pipeline. Effectiveness has improved through the automation of the processes, thereby saving citizens a second trip to the registration office and reducing the number of errors. Return on investment is good, with €1.3 million in cashable financial gains per month on a €300,000 investment over three years and €250,000 in annual operational costs.

The manner in which DVDV addresses major infrastructural issues in administration back-offices shows what can happen when governments face important choices in technology and infrastructure for government modernisation. DVDV enables the delivery of highly efficient and effective multi-channel services through system design and execution at the right level of complexity, which is likely to ensure long-term success. DVDV has the potential to pave the way for the widespread integration of cost-efficient eGovernment solutions, if teamed up with other relevant initiatives.

Project Acronym

German Administration Services Directory (Deutsches Verwaltungsdiensteverzeichnis)

Besac.clic

Website

www.dvdv.de Contact details

Dr Martin Hagen e-mail: [email protected]

Dr Christian Mrugalla e-mail: [email protected]

6 http://www.epractice.eu/cases/dvdv



Project Acronym

On Line Police Station OLPSWebsite

www.commissariatodips.it Contact details

Maurizio Masciopinto e-mail: [email protected]

@ Most inspiring good practice

Initiatives that provide creative solutions to common challenges and inspire others. Won by: the Online Police Station submitted by the Italian State Police (Italy).

The Online Police Station7 (www.commissariatodips.it) was launched on 15 February 2006 as the world’s first online police station. The website allows citizens to seek general information, download forms and make online complaints about computer crimes. In addition, it is possible to receive valuable advice, interact with experts and report illegal conduct and events directly on the web. The police station is the point of reference in the event of difficulties. To date over 700,000 Italians, 38,000 Europeans and 21,000 visitors from the rest of the world have used the Online Police Station and members of Interpol and other EU police forces have shown resounding interest in developing the model further.

OLPS, the Online Police Station implemented by the Italian Postal and Communications Police Service, is an example of a low-cost high-impact eGovernment solution that directly focuses on engaging citizens to increase Internet safety, security and, ultimately, trust in the use of eGovernment. OLPS is executed through innovative deployment of user-friendly multimedia and networking tools that encourage cooperation between law enforcement authorities and ordinary people to combat and prevent cyber-crime. The Online Police Station is a highly replicable eGovernment project and contains lessons for police services around the world.

7 http://www.epractice.eu/cases/olps

3 The second day of the conference


The second day of the conference, Friday 21 September, started with three parallel sessions focusing on the following topics:

• Measuring progress (PS4). The session set out to cover the main dimensions concerning how eGovernment can support efficiency and effectiveness in government, and to identify the key issues related to measuring government performance.

• ICT for high impact services in the internal market (PS5). The Internal Market is making it possible to remove borders and do business anywhere in the EU. The session focused on the role ICT plays in this area.

• Implementation challenges (PS6). The session explored key issues related to the implementation of eGovernment, lessons being learned and opportunities for the future.

The following plenary session on participation and transparency (PL6) examined the need and opportunities for citizen engagement in political processes and decision-making.

This was followed by a keynote address about the future of the world wide web, its possibilities and limits, and the ways in which it could help governments to make better use of their resources and improve the whole eGovernment experience.

The final plenary session on the conference summary and next steps towards 2020 (PL7) detailed the progress made since the 2000 Lisbon Conference and highlighted future challenges. It also presented the industry and open community responses to the Ministerial Declaration. Finally, Minister Virant declared the main policy priorities during Slovenia’s EU presidency and announced the forthcoming eGovernment events (Alliance with Users – BRDO, 11 February 2008), IDABC Conference (BRDO 12-13 February 2008).



PS4 Measuring progress

Chair: Sven Forster, Director of Information Management, Fedict (SPF ICT), Belgium

What should European countries do better? Darrell West, Professor of Political Science, Brown University, USA

Peak Performance in eGovernment Frank Mordacq, Director General for State Modernisation, France

This session set out to cover the main dimensions concerning how eGovernment can support efficiency and effectiveness in government, and to identify the key issues related to measuring government performance.

Darrell West, Professor of Political Science, Brown University (USA) presented the results of the university’s 2007 annual global study based on a benchmarking analysis of 20,000 websites and portals worldwide. Online publication, online services, privacy issues, bilingual access and tailoring to the needs of the disabled are the main dimensions of the analysis. All countries surveyed have made enormous progress over the last year in placing information, services and interactive features online. A number of major challenges were identified, including cost problems (eGovernment projects have increasing implementation costs, and the higher the cost, the greater the need for a return on the investment made); the digital divide (a high percentage of people do not have access to the Internet); the general lack of interactive features; front-door/back-door access (most users access eGovernment websites through back-door search engines, whilst only 4% of people access these portals directly through the front door); and, related to this, the need to improve access (not only by designing fascinating websites but also increasing their use).

Sven Forster, Director of Information Management, Fedict (SPF ICT), Belgium, presented trends in measurement initiatives launched by the Belgian Federal Government over the past four years: the degree of back-office development (administration readiness) in 2004; customer expectations in 2005–2006; eGovernment measurement dashboard in 2007; and a new measurement framework being implemented for 2008. The federal government will be defining this framework based on a long list of indicators compiled by mapping existing indicators used across all Belgian administrations. The measurement framework will consist of five categories (context, input, output, use and impact) in five policy domains (eGovernment, eInclusion, eDemocracy, eBusiness and eSectors). Some user target groups have also been identified: citizens, enterprises and intermediate agencies, public administrations (local and regional), and civil sector users, each with the double task of refining and updating indicators from year to year. Major future efforts also need to be made on impact indicators. The next steps will include establishing long-term partnerships, aligning the timing and planning of different data collection programmes, and developing reporting tools. The framework will be fully aligned with the EU measurement framework 2007 - 2010.

Frank Mordacq, Director General for French State Modernisation (France), discussed the specific differences in measuring progress in eGovernment compared with earlier government measurement approaches, i.e. the speed of change is increasing, benchmarking becomes rapidly outdated, and there is often a discrepancy between the programme and the business interests. The key dimensions of measuring progress in eGovernment were also examined in terms of taking account of legal obligations, and the need to balance user satisfaction, citizen benefits, taxpayer benefits and job satisfaction for civil servants. The overall experience with the French eGovernment measurement tool, MAREVA, which has been inspired by best practices in the private sector, is that it helps public sector decision-makers in five areas of evaluation: state financial value, internal benefits for public administrations, direct customer value, the need for a particular project or programme, and risk assessment. The model has been applied to more than 100 eGovernment initiatives. Careful assessment of the business case for eGovernment projects, together with a long-term commitment, is necessary to achieve peak performance and a proper measurement of this.

Benchmarking analysis: progress and challenges in placing information, services, and interactive features online

Belgian trends in measurement initiatives and measurement of framework development

Measuring progress in eGovernment in France and how it assists public sector decision-makers



PS5 ICT for high-impact services in the Internal Market

Chair: Jean-Francoise Junger, European Commission, DG INFSO (replacing Ina Gudele, Minister for Special Assignments for eGovernment), Latvia

E-Procurement - experiences and lessons Manuel Ricou, Member of the Board, National Purchasing Unit, Portugal

A more dynamic economy: the impact of online business registration Rein Lang, Minister of Justice, Republic of Estonia

Security versus reducing red tape – a contradiction? Prof. Dr Yao-Hua Tan, Vrije University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

The Internal Market is making it possible to remove borders and do business anywhere in the EU, and ICT plays an important supporting role, for example in dramatically reducing the administrative burden and removing barriers. Still, however, there are challenges.

Manuel Ricou, Member of the Board, National Purchasing Unit (Portugal), highlighted that eProcurement in Portugal goes back at least to 1999, when ICT started to be used on a large scale in public sector purchasing, and this was followed by changes to the enabling legal framework. The main drivers were clear: huge savings, internal reorganisation, and improving transparency and quality. Roll-out focused on longer term structural changes (such as in a Ministerial Procurement Unit or a National Procurement Agency), as well as shorter term quick wins. Results have been good; but, so far, on a small scale. Savings of about €40 million, 20% of the total costs, have been achieved, and the whole programme pays for itself. The most important longer term benefit to government, however, is the creation of a working network of expertise, experience and ideas, which is now self-sustaining and starting to drive forward new innovation. This is also where the biggest challenge has been, i.e. changing structures (for example, what to centralise and what not), power relationships, and the way people think and work. Taking the organisation with you is the critical issue. Public sector eProcurement has the power to influence the whole national economy in important ways. Will this lead to abuse, and how will it be possible, at the same time, to respect people and the environment?

Rein Lang, Minister of Justice (Estonia), showed that online business registration and services is another area of high potential eGovernment impact. The biggest challenges are how to reconcile speed, efficiency and lower administrative burden with maintaining legal certainty and commercial abuse. The old system of business registration was fragmented, involving different agencies, and it took days if not weeks to respond. The new system from January 2007 provides online company registration using a digital signature and a smart card reader, enabling personalised access to own files but based on standardised regulations and guidelines. The strength of the system is also seen in its online filters for correcting mistakes and links to other databases for information checking, for example to ensure that ineligible people cannot register. Now, 28% of all new companies are registered online and this figure is growing fast. It takes only two hours, compared to the previous five days, before the legal decision is taken and received by e-mail, and all this has been done with no new staff. The system is now also being extended with new registration services, such as for healthcare. At least one critical future challenge remains, however. Lack of mutual cross-EU recognition of digital signatures will hold up the Single Market and the Services Directive. The political will is there at the top level, but is often lacking at the operational level.

Prof. Dr Yao-Hua Tan, Vrije University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands), stressed that another critical area for European trade and economy is customs, and a big challenge is increasing security whilst, at the same time, reducing red tape. How can this difficult balancing act be achieved? Taking the example of the huge Heineken beer exports to, for example, the USA, how is it possible to ensure that zero-rated excise payments for export really are applied only to export goods? Excise fraud in Europe totals a massive

Internal Market and ICT: reducing administrative burden and removing barriers

Benefits and challenges

Online business registration and services – high potential eGovernment impact

28 % of companies registered online in 2 hours

Customs: increasing security while reducing red tape?

The Heineken experience



€1.5 billion per year, so there is a great deal at stake. How is it possible to know that the beer was actually exported? The solution is to create a single window, which integrates previously separate systems used by the carrier, for VAT, for the excise department itself, for the export department, and for the statistical office. The philosophy is to change from a “push” model (whereby Heineken, for example pushes data to these various systems) to a “pull” model (whereby Heineken pulls the data it needs from the single window). In addition, smart container seals have been developed which remotely send and receive data over the IBM TREC system, and which digitally secure the data, but also validate them and the content of the container at the same time. This results in a transition from physical inspections to an online IR (information resources) audit.

PS6 Implementing challenges

Chair: Dr Manfred Matzka, Director General, Federal Chancellery, Austria

Challenges and progress on eGovernment implementation for better services Martin Schallbruch, Chief Information Officer, Federal Ministry of the Interior, Germany

Convergence of ICT and media and better services Guy Giles, Operations Manager, DigiTV, United Kingdom

An Industrial perspective of eGovernment Challenges and Solutions Yvon Le Roux, Vice President of Public Sector, Cisco

The modernisation of public administrations using ICT leads to very high expectations. This session explored key issues related to the implementation of eGovernment, lessons being learned and opportunities for the future.

Three rather different approaches were presented, including joining up government to be more client-oriented, offering services with digital TV and mobile phones in order to address groups in society without personal computers, and changing government to become citizen-led through the use of Web 2.0 technologies.

Martin Schallbruch, Chief Information Officer, Federal Ministry of the Interior (Germany), presented the first approach, which is motivated by the fact that nearly every political project creates an IT project and will eventually depend on the success of this project and the integration of government resources horizontally, vertically, and across national borders. This enables the reuse of data and the linking of processes in different government agencies. Political leadership and a clear commitment are required to transform government in order to exploit the power of IT. This should be based on real efforts to align activities to fulfil the needs of all users: citizens, companies, and civil servants.

In order to implement this approach, an eGovernment interoperability architecture, a powerful IT infrastructure, a skilled workforce and strong IT governance are all needed. Strong emphasis must be given to improve the IT skills of civil servants and to establish nationally coordinated leadership structures. Furthermore, in order to enable governments to join up across national boundaries, an eGovernment Advisory Board at the EU level is highly recommended.

Guy Giles, Operations Manager, DigiTV (United Kingdom), presented the second approach, based on a content management system for digital TV and mobile phone communication. It addresses the problem of the digital divide. There are far more people with TV or mobile phones than with personal computers and Internet access. Therefore, DigiTV in the United Kingdom aims to offer government services via digital TV and mobile phones. It offers possibilities to search for a job, bid, or organise a local community via digital TV. In this context, the service for booking doctor’s appointments has become the killer application for the take-up of DigiTV services.

Client-oriented government: horizontal, vertical, and cross-border government resource integration

Powerful IT infrastructure and IT governance

Multi-channel services to address groups in society with no personal computers and/or Internet access

Single content management for diverse communication channels



One key success factor is that a single content management technology can be used for various communication channels. However, being a new technology still in the unfinished process of communication technology convergence, many technological challenges remain. Public sector commitment plus broad user take-up are still major challenges.

Yvon Le Roux, Vice President of Public Sector, Cisco, attempted through his third approach to embed government in the emerging Web 2.0 universe to create citizen-centric government. It is based on the belief that public value arises from four key properties of government performance: quality of services and responsiveness, the creation of outcomes that are really wanted by citizens, the strengthening of citizen trust in government, and enhancing security and community within society.

Web 2.0 and related technologies, plus shared services, are used to foster collaboration and productivity. Strong emphasis is placed on increasing the abilities of the individual. In essence, this is all about transforming the public sector through changing the technology paradigm and architectures, such as from push to pull technology in service delivery, and from silo architectures to network-centric architectures. The main barrier to making this work in real life is the human factor. The session noted that many in the public sector do not understand the end goals of this transformation, and are often afraid of it because they lack IT skills. Therefore, strong emphasis has to be placed on communication and the improvement of IT skills. In addition, broadband access for everyone everywhere is a necessity.

PL6 Participation and transparency

eDemocracy through election, petition and expression of public opinion: role of ICT issues at stake and paradoxes Catherine Trautmann, MEP (Vice-chairwoman ITRE Committee)

Obstacles and opportunities for Citizen participation in EU decision-making and EU law implementation P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, European Ombudsman

Technology as a tool to bring EU citizens into social and political life Rogério Carapuça, Chairman and CEO, Novabase SGPS

Be a Member of European Parliament – Game of Life Piotr Nowina-Konopka, President, Robert Schuman Foundation

This session examined the need and opportunities for citizen engagement in political processes and decision-making. However, whilst ICT has significantly increased our potential to communicate, interact and decide, citizens have reduced their involvement in national and European politics. If this paradox can be directly addressed, it would be possible to achieve significant gains in improved legitimacy and transparency in political decision-making.

Catherine Trautmann, MEP (Vice-chairwoman ITRE Committee) focused on eDemocracy and eEngagement, and the challenges these generate, despite providing additional channels for participation. It would be very useful to record the public debate to make it visible, including the possibility for multilingual debates where appropriate. It is also important to ensure that the process of consultation is completed, even when public web spaces are closed down due to low participation, which often happens. The right to petition is very important, and some countries, such as the United Kingdom, have established successful ePetition sites.

P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, European Ombudsman, focused on the role of the ombudsman, transparency in the EU and citizen involvement in EU law implementation. The ombudsman, as an internal control mechanism created by the Treaty of Maastricht

Citizen-led government through

Web 2.0 technologies

Transforming public sector through changing technology architecture

Improve legitimacy and transparency in political decision-making

eDemocracy and eEngagement – the challenges of public debates

The UK ePetition example

The role of the Ombudsman in engaging citizens

Easy-to-use and citizen-friendly public access



in 1995, has to deal with complaints from EU citizens, and since then has received more than 25,000 such complaints. According to Mr Diamandouros, about 50% of EU citizens tend to trust the European Commission and the European Parliament, whereas more than 30% of European citizens do not trust these European institutions. A key factor for trust is transparency, and large-scale transparency may be possible due to broadband, although only a small percentage of citizens watch live streaming of Council meetings, etc. Another way to increase transparency is access to information and, although document registers play a vital role in this, access alone is not enough, so that, in addition, EU institutions need to be proactive. The EU launched a new website to facilitate public access in a citizen-friendly manner, which has had a positive impact on the number of citizens visiting the site. In terms of citizen involvement in EU law implementation, which is the responsibility of Member States working with the European Commission, there have been over 100 citizen complaints, which have shown that problems often arise from a lack of willingness by the European Commission to support this process. Interactive websites could help re-engage citizens and thus potentially have a central role to play in achieving this goal.

Rogério Carapuça, Chairman and CEO of Novabase SGPS, focused on technology as a tool to bring EU citizens fully into the social and political life of Europe, and presented one single message: if we want to bring EU citizens and the EU decision-making process together, it is necessary to give citizens what they want. Many changes have taken place in the past few years, during which a new generation of “digital natives” has grown up, the technology has matured, and there has been a social as well as an economic evolution in Europe. The European public sector is involved in multiple eGovernment initiatives, and EU citizens have very quickly adopted this new form of relationship with their public administration. However, citizens wish to interact in relation to daily and local problems, and want to know what has been decided at the local community level, whilst this dimension is still severely underdeveloped. This is, therefore, the priority, and perhaps more important than national or EU level interaction.

Piotr Nowina-Konopka, President of the Robert Schuman Foundation, outlined a game developed by the Robert Schuman Foundation which has had astonishing results. The aim was to increase interest in the European Parliament and the EU. The first pilot of the game was launched in Poland and was a great success, and this was then extended across Europe. The game combines both learning and fun in an interactive manner and targets young students. To date, more than 10,000 participants between 13 and 23 years of age have used the game, with the majority between 18 and 22 years. The game is based on simulating the work of the European Parliament, for example, creating a new act, finding a majority, building a coalition, asking and answering questions, voting, etc., requiring negotiation with other players. All this increased the knowledge of participants, and their interest in the European Parliament has grown significantly as a result.

Keynote address: The Future of the World Wide Web

Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, Director, and José Manuel Alonso, eGovernment Lead, W3C – CTIC

The session stressed the fact that, since the Internet and PC connectivity interaction between citizens and governments is being transformed, the web is playing an increasingly important role in relationships with governments. In fact, the web has become the main channel for governments to deliver electronic services to citizens.

The issue is to try and see whether governments are making the best use of technologies and whether they are making the most of the web. This session mainly dealt with the future of the world wide web, its possibilities and limits, and the ways in which it could help governments make better use of their resources and improve the whole eGovernment experience.

EU Parliament and EU as a whole: an interactive simulation combining fun and learning

A Polish game

The web: a channel between the government and its citizens

How to make the best use and make the most of technologies

Technology as a tool to integrate EU citizens in Europe’s social and political life

The “digital natives” era



Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, Director of W3C/CTIC (not in attendance), stressed in his keynote address the importance of transparency and openness for the future of eGovernment.

With reference to the latter, government departments are said to have an obligation to be open to others, including NGOs. Public sector openness also implies that standard formats should be adopted when publishing information on the web. This would help ease accessibility and use of data, thus the web can be a valuable tool, but only if there is quality of content.

On the other hand, transparency is a delicate issue that could be ruined if misused; privacy is therefore essential and source data should ideally be traceable and trusted.

Jose Manuel Alonso, eGovernment Lead at W3C/CTIC, emphasised the importance of the Internet as the main delivery channel for service delivery; as a consequence, web technology has a crucial role to play in government and citizen (G2B) relationships. Current efforts are therefore being made to make the best use of technologies and keep eGovernment simple. Open web standards help foster innovation and competition, and increase citizen and market trust as a result of the transparency of the process.

Data integration and interoperability, together with transparency and privacy, have been further tackled in the intervention. From basic interoperability through semantic interoperability, the more sophisticated level of data integration allows for mixed data coming from different sources. Nonetheless, transparency and privacy can be guaranteed only if data are used for the purpose for which they were collected. Citizens can trust government only if they feel that privacy and security are guaranteed.

Conference summary and next steps towards 2020

Prof. Mariano Gago, Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Portugal

The contribution of the European digital Industry Mark MacGann, Director General, EICTA

Open Source Software and eGovernment Graham Taylor, Chief Executive, OpenForum Europe

Outlook of Slovenia’s EU Presidency policy priorities Dr Gregor Virant, Minister of Public Administration, Slovenia

Mariano Gago, Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education (Portugal), previously engaged in the preparation of the Lisbon Strategy, detailed the splendid progress made since the 2000 Lisbon Conference and the first eGovernment Action Plan. The first speech illustrated that, during the preparation of the Lisbon Agenda, it was decided that eGovernment would be included in public policy. In the past ten years, governments have been forced to cut administrative costs, and the following areas were developed: eInclusion for citizens with special needs (the vast majority of governments still do not have user-friendly portals), restructuring government agencies (front-office and back-office), adoption of multi-channel technology, measurement indicators. Some steps forward should be taken with reference to development of indicators and trusted information (i.e. in the domain of eHealth and education, we are behind expectations). eScience is still leading the way in designing new eGovernment services and simulation tools and developing grids. A wider role given to eScience could boost eGovernment implementation in a multilingual society.

Mark MacGann, Director General, EICTA (European Information & Communications Technology Industry Association) underlined that the objectives set in the 2005 Manchester Ministerial Declaration are still valid. Commenting on the EICTA appreciation of the Lisbon Ministerial Declaration, he welcomed the renewed focus on eID, the core of future eGovernment developments. Research and development

The future of W3C

Public sector openness: easily accessible and usable data

The delicate balance between transparency and privacy

“Most eGovernment sites are still not totally user-friendly and, therefore, are not accessible to citizens with special needs. This is an aspect we have to address, making the information accessible to everyone” Mariano Gago

EICTA appreciation of the Lisbon Ministerial Conference

New topics

Data integration and interoperability while guaranteeing privacy and security



in identity management should be encouraged at the European and national levels and a stakeholder forum should be initiated by the EC to discuss the 2010 objectives. To increase user trust, the public sector would benefit from a wider use of Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs). Industry supports the actions proposed in the Ministerial Declaration to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of eGovernment in terms of measurements of effectiveness, best practice, identifying flagship services and developing pilots. Several new topics have to be taken into account: the implementation of the Services Directive and the role of ICT in supporting energy efficiency improvement before the next eGovernment conference.

Some important topics are not addressed in the Lisbon Declaration: insufficient progress has been made on the interoperability side, and a strong high-level political message is needed to provide sufficient spectrum resources in the appropriate bands across the EU, and the role of the third sector in service delivery should be strengthened. It is necessary to think beyond 2010 and ministers need to identify key enablers of the future: R&D should be undertaken under FP7 to reap the benefits of new ICT technologies (i.e. Service-Orientated Architecture (SOA), Shared Services, Web 2.0 and the Internet of Things). A truly digital Europe depends largely on the willingness of the Member States. A lot has been done but a great deal remains to be achieved.

Graham Taylor, Chief Executive, OpenForum Europe, presented the declaration by the Open Community in response to the Lisbon Ministerial Declaration. While recognising the progress made so far in encouraging the development of the i2010 objectives, they see an opportunity for even more ambitious progress in building on innovation, enhancing the position of Europe’s small business within a global economy, and creating greater accessibility of services for all citizens. The co-signatories support the targets set by the ministers responsible for eGovernment, highlighted in the Ministerial Declaration: cross-border interoperability, reduction of administrative burdens, inclusive eGovernment, transparency and democratic engagement.

Open Source Software is now forecast to represent 30% of the ICT market by 2010, and represents a major opportunity for Europe to energise its own, largely SME-based, ICT industry and accelerate the objectives of the i2010 programme. The organisations represented strongly endorse the opportunity created by Open Source Software, and believe that, alongside the support for Open Standards, it can accelerate the objectives of the Ministerial Declaration.

Dr Gregor Virant, Minister of Public Administration (Slovenia), looked ahead to the activities of the Slovenian Presidency and stated that the main policy priorities during Slovenia’s EU presidency will be: interoperability, eParticipation and inclusion, and reduction of the administrative burden.

The minister focused on the importance of mutual recognition of electronic eIDs and strong political commitments to consistently drive pan-European electronic services. There is definitely the political will to enhance pan-European services.

It is time to change and reduce administrative burden as much as possible. He announced the next eGovernment events to be held under the Slovenian Presidency: eGovernment Conference (Alliance with Users – BRDO, 11 February 2008), IDABC Conference (BRDO 12/13 February 2008).

Support of the Open Community in implementing the targets outlined in the declaration

The Slovenian Presidency in 2008 will focus on:

Interoperability

eParticipation & inclusion

Reduction of administrative burden

Major focus on interoperability and identification of key enablers

A lot has been done but much has to be still achieved

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Speakers’ Bios (in order of appearance)

Pedro Silva Pereira Minister of the Presidency (Presidency of the Council of Ministers) of the Portuguese Government.

Born in 1962, married, with two children, Mr Pedro Silva Pereira has a Master’s degree in Law (Juridical-Political Sciences) from the University of Lisbon.

A lawyer by profession, Mr Pedro Silva Pereira has been a lecturer at the Law School of the University of Lisbon since 1984, and an assistant professor at the Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa (Autonomous University of Lisbon), since 1986.

He was a member of the Committee of Experts of the Council of Europe for Reparations for Damages caused to the Environment (1988-1992) and of the European National Experts Group on Environmental Liability (1995-1997).

He was secretary of state for Land Use Management and Nature Conservation from 1998 – 2002.

He has been a Member of Parliament since 2002 and Minister of the Presidency since 2005.

Siim Kallas Vice President, Commissioner for Administrative Affairs, Audit and Anti-Fraud, European Commission

Mr Siim Kallas has been an active participant in the restoration of Estonian statehood and has served in Estonia as prime minister, minister of finance, minister of foreign affairs and president of the Central Bank. He has been elected to the Estonian Parliament three times. He also held the position of chairman of the Estonian Reform Party since the party’s creation in 1994 until November 2004, after which he became the Honorary Chairman of the party. Since November 2004, Mr Siim Kallas has been Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Administration, Audit and Anti-fraud.

José Sócrates Prime Minister, Portugal

José Sócrates was born in Porto on 6 September, 1957. He graduated in 1979 as a civil technical engineer from the Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra and, in 1996, earned a degree in civil engineering from the Universidade Independente, a private university in Lisbon. He also has an MBA, awarded in 2005 by ISCTE, a public university institute in Lisbon.

José Sócrates was one of the founders of JSD (the youth branch of PSD - Portuguese Social Democratic Party) before changing his political affiliation and applying for membership to the PS - Portuguese Socialist Party. He has been a member of the Socialist Party since 1981. José Sócrates served as a technical engineer for the Covilhã City Council, and was a member of the Portuguese Parliament from 1987 until 1995, representing the Castelo Branco electoral district. While serving as the chairperson of the Castelo Branco Federation of the Socialist Party (1983-1996), he was elected to the party’s National Secretariat in 1991. From 1989 to 1996, he served as a member of

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the Covilhã Municipal Assembly. He served as spokesperson on environmental affairs for the Socialist Party from 1991 to 1995. In 1995, he entered government as secretary of state for the environment in the first government of António Guterres. Two years later, Sócrates became minister for youth and sports and was one of the organisers of the EURO 2004 cup in Portugal. He became minister for the environment in Guterres’ second government in 1999. Following the elections in 2002 (won by José Manuel Durão Barroso), Sócrates became a member of the opposition in the Portuguese Parliament. After the resignation of Ferro Rodrigues as party leader in 2004, he won a bid for the post of secretary general against Manuel Alegre and João Soares, winning the vote of nearly 80% of party members on 24 September 2004. After the landslide victory of his party in the 2005 Portuguese election, Sócrates was called on 24 February by president Jorge Sampaio to form a new government: the XVII Governo Constitucional.

Andrea Di Maio Vice president, Gartner Research

Andrea Di Maio is a vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner Research, where he focuses on the public sector, with particular reference to the business value of IT, eGovernment and transformation strategies, open-source software, environmentally-sustainable IT and the impact of technology on the future of government.

Prior to joining Gartner, Di Maio was with the European Commission, where he was responsible for part of the R&D framework programme, as well as for all activities regarding the problem of the impact of the year 2000 and the IT impact of the single European currency. Before joining the European Commission, he held management and technical positions in the systems and software industry. He has more than 20 years of experience in IT.

Nikolay Vassilev Minister of State Administration and Administrative Reform, Bulgaria

Born in Varna, Bulgaria, on 28 November 1969. Following the general election in June 2005, Nikolay Vassilev was appointed Minister of State Administration and Administrative Reform on 16 August 2005. Minister Vassilev is responsible for the state administration, eGovernment, and human resources management.

From July 2003 to August 2005, Nikolay Vassilev was deputy prime minister and minister of transport and communications. Prior to that, from July 2001 to July 2003, he was deputy prime minister and minister of economy.

From 2000 to 2004, he worked as financial adviser for leading multinational companies, including LAZARD CAPITAL MARKETS, UBS WARBURG and COOPERS & LYBRAND.

João Tiago Silveira Secretary of State of Justice, XVII Constitutional Government, Portugal

In the period between 1995 and 2005, he has held the roles of legal adviser to the minister of the presidency; legal adviser to the minister of parliamentary affairs; legal adviser to the minister of justice; director of the Legal Policy and Planning Office of the Ministry of Justice; legal counsel at the Morais Leitão, Galvão Teles, Soares da Silva & associates legal firm, namely in the fields of administrative law, administrative courts procedure Law, urban planning and maritime law. He was also lecturer at the University of Lisbon Law School, in the fields of public and administrative law.

He holds a law degree from the University of Lisbon Law School, and an LLM in Administrative Law from the University of Lisbon Law School.

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In addition, he is a member of the High Council of Public Prosecutors; a member of the Committee for the National Programme for the Improvement of Regulation Quality; a member of the High Council of Statistics and President of the Sub-committee for Statistical Data Confidentiality; and a member of the Committee for the Modification of Portuguese Law to the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty.

Professor Jane E. Fountain Professor of Political Science and Public Policy Director of the National Center for Digital Government Director of the Science, Technology, and Society Initiative Director of the Center for Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts, at Amherst

Jane E. Fountain is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her appointment began in September 2005. Previously, she served for 16 years on the faculty of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Professor Fountain is the founder and Director of the National Center for Digital Government, based at UMass Amherst, which was established with support from the National Science Foundation to build research and infrastructure for the emerging field of research on technology and governance. The National Center has sponsored research workshops, seminars, doctoral fellowships and visiting researchers from around the world in addition to its active research programmes.

Professor Fountain directs the new Science, Technology and Society Initiative, a priority area of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at UMass Amherst. The STS Initiative serves as a catalyst for research partnerships between social, natural and physical scientists on campus and beyond. It is also designed to build social science, policy, and cross-disciplinary research on the range of social, political and economic challenges and research questions posed by emerging technologies. As part of the STS Initiative, Fountain is also a Senior Researcher at the Center for Hierarchical Manufacturing studying the societal implications of nanotechnology.

Fountain also directs the Women in the Information Age Project, which was established with a gift from PriceWaterhouseCoopers. This project examines the participation of women in computing and information technology-related fields and, with its partner institutions, seeks to increase the number of women experts in information and communication technologies.

Fountain is the author of Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change (Brookings Institution Press, 2001), which was awarded an Outstanding Academic Title in 2002 by Choice. The book has become a classic text in the field and has been translated into and published in Chinese, Portuguese and Japanese. Fountain was the co-editor of Proposition 2 1/2: Its Impact on Massachusetts.

Her current book projects include the successor volume to Building the Virtual State, which will examine technology-based cross-agency innovations in the US federal government from 2001 to the present, and Women in the Information Age (to be published by Cambridge University Press), which focuses on gender, institutions and technology.

She has published research in scholarly journals including Governance, the National Civic Review, Technology in Society, Science and Public Policy, and The Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery.

Fountain holds a double PhD from Yale University, in organisational behaviour and political science, and master’s degrees from Harvard and Yale. While at Yale, she was a Yale Fellow and a Mellon Fellow.

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In addition to her scholarly research programme, Fountain has served on several governing bodies and advisory boards, including the advisory boards for the State of Massachusetts mass.gov web portal, meetup.com, a web-based meeting tool widely used by voters during the last presidential campaign; the Social Science Research Council; and the National Science Foundation. Her executive teaching and invited lectures have taken her to several developing countries and governments in transition, including those of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Nicaragua, Chile, Estonia, Hungary, and Slovenia, as well as to industrialised countries, including Japan and the countries of the European Union.

The interview with Jane E. Fountain conducted prior to the conference is available on the conference website under the Presentations and Speeches section.

Peter Holmes Director of Operations for Accenture’s Government Services business in Europe, Africa and Latin America

Peter Holmes is the Director of Operations for Accenture’s Government Services business in Europe, Africa and Latin America. For more than 25 years, Peter has been helping businesses and governments leverage new technologies, create new partnerships and deliver improved services to their stakeholders.

Peter joined Accenture in 1996. Prior to this, Peter was the managing director of UK systems for Sema Group Plc (now Atos Origin) and a board member of its global outsourcing business.

At Sema, Peter worked extensively across the UK public sector where, for many years, he was the director responsible for the company’s business with the Department of Social Security (now the Department of Work and Pensions). With the Department of Social Security, he was responsible for the development and implementation of systems for national unemployment benefits, social grants and national insurance.

Since joining Accenture, Peter has shared his experience with organisations in North America, Asia Pacific, Europe and Africa. Peter has helped the Ontario Ministry Community and Social Services in Canada achieve more than $692 million in savings; he has guided new partnering principles for delivery of the world’s second largest Sybase database with the UK Inland Revenue; he has managed technology operations of the London Stock Exchange, one of Accenture’s most successful and longest-standing client relationships.

In his role as Director of Operations for Government Services, Peter has direct responsibility for developing the careers of more than 5,000 staff members and helping more than 500 clients become high performing organisations. Revenues this fiscal year will exceed $1 billion.

Peter is a member of Accenture’s Global Leadership Council and a board director of Accenture plc, the UK operating company.

Peter has four children and lives in south-west London with his partner, Sally.

Art de Geus Deputy Secretary-General, OECD

Mr Aart Jan de Geus has been appointed Deputy Secretary-General. He will be in charge of the political reform economy and preparations for the Ministerial Council Meeting and the Executive Committee in special session. Mr de Geus will take up his functions on 5 March 2007.

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Mr de Geus, a Dutch national, was minister of social affairs and employment in the Netherlands from 2002 until 22 February this year. As minister, Mr de Geus introduced major reforms in the Dutch social security system, notably by turning it into an active system in which citizens, employers and local authorities take on responsibilities. During the four years of his tenure, he concluded major national agreements with social partners on wages, social security reforms and tax facilities for early retirement. He chaired the OECD Social Policy Ministerial Meeting in 2005 and has served in various functions at local, national and international level.

From 1998 until 2002, Mr de Geus was a partner in an Amsterdam-based company for strategy and management, where he worked in the fields of healthcare, pensions and human resource development.

Mr de Geus served as vice-chairman of the executive board of the National Federation of Christian Trade Unions from 1993 to 1998, where he focused on social security, healthcare, pensions, labour market policy, income policy and education. He has been a member of the trade union’s executive board since 1988. Prior to that, Mr de Geus worked as a lawyer in the industry sector of the Christian Trade Union.

Mr de Geus has a law degree from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam and completed his post-graduate studies in labour law at Nijmegen University.

Mr de Geus is married and has three children.

Giuseppe Paruolo Deputy Mayor for Health and Communication of the City of Bologna

After gaining a first in Mathematics at the University of Bologna (1985) and a postgraduate degree in Computer Science (1986), he joined Cineca (1987), a university consortium computing Centre, at which his work focused on mathematical software development and integration, performance evaluation, environment and financial modelling, and vector and parallel algorithms and architectures.

He worked as a contract professor of data processing systems at the University of Modena (1992-1994).

He has represented Cineca at many international conferences and his work has been published in journals such as the Journal of Computational Physics and the International Journal of Supercomputer Applications.

From 1996 to 1999, he ran the Notsomad Technology Transfer Node for the HPCN TTN Network of the EU-funded Esprit programme, promoting technology transfer of advanced computing technologies in Italian industry and successfully managing 15 projects involving more than 40 companies.

In 1999, he was elected councillor at the Bologna City Council, where he served one term as group leader. He was also appointed provincial leader of the Margherita party in the Ulivo (olive tree) alliance.

After the 2004 local elections, the newly elected Mayor, Sergio Cofferati, appointed him deputy mayor for health. In 2006, the mayor broadened his mandate, and he is now Deputy Mayor for Health and Communication, including ICT.

In November 2006, he was elected Chair of the EUROCITIES Knowledge Society Forum, Telecities.

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Pierre Liautaud EMEA Vice President for Western Europe

Pierre Liautaud is Microsoft Vice President for Western Europe and oversees operations across 14 European countries. In this role, Liautaud is responsible for working with country general managers to orchestrate the region’s business vision while furthering its citizenship agenda. By partnering with governments and educational institutions around the world, Microsoft is committed to finding technology solutions that help improve the operations of government and the delivery of services to citizens, improve the quality and reach of education, and find new ways to grow local economies.

During his career, Liautaud held a number of leadership positions, including that of vice president of Microsoft’s Enterprise and Partner Group, EMEA, CEO of @viso, a leading European incubator, the brainchild of Vivendi Universal and Softbank Corporation, and VP of e-business marketing at IBM Corp. Additionally, during Liautaud’s 17-year tenure at IBM, he carried out in key assignments, ranging from executive assistant to Louis V Gerstner, IBM CEO, and GM of Global Electronics Industries.

Liautaud holds master’s degrees from the Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications, Paris.

José Brito Minister of Economy, Growth and Competitiveness of Cape Verde

José Brito is the Minister of Economy, Growth and Competitiveness of Cape Verde. Previously, he was Ambassador to the United States, Canada and Mexico from 2001 to 2006.

José has more than 30 years’ experience in management and government service. He worked for Ocean Energy, a US-based oil company, from 1997 to 2001, serving as the company’s government relations manager and government relations vice president. From 1992 to 1996, he helped establish and led a United Nations project, African Futures, to assist African governments in developing and implementing a process for strategic long-term planning. Jose served as minister of development planning and foreign aid from 1977 to 1991.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a master’s degree in physics from the University of Abidjan, and also completed studies in chemical engineering at the French Institute of Petroleum.

Lee Boon Yang Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts of the Republic of Singapore

Dr Lee’s political career started in 1984, when he first stood in the general elections. Since 1985, Dr Lee has held various political posts, including that of parliamentary secretary in the ministries of the environment, communications and information, finance and home affairs.

From 1986, he served as minister of state in the ministry of trade and industry, followed by the ministry of home affairs and the ministry of national development, and later as senior minister of state for national development, home affairs and defence.

In 1991, Dr Lee was appointed minister in the prime minister’s office. He was appointed minister for defence on 2 July 1994, whilst retaining his post as minister for manpower, to which he was appointed on 2 January 1992. He subsequently moved on to his current appointment as Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts in May 2003.

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Mats Odell Minister for Local Government and Financial Markets, Sweden

Born in 1947, married to Elisabeth with four children.

He holds a degree in Economics and Business from Stockholm University.

In the period ranging from 1981 to date, he has held several positions, from national chairman of Young Christian Democrats to member of Vallentuna Municipal Council and the municipal executive board. From 1973 to 1981, he was a member of the national board of the Christian Democratic Party and its executive committee, representing the Young Christian Democrats (KDU). He was then a member of the European Union of Christian Democrats and, after the merger, the political bureau of the European People’s Party. From 1985-1988, he was alternate for Alf Svensson in the Swedish Riksdag in technical cooperation with the Centre Party.

He was a member of the Riksdag, minister for transport and communications (1991-1994), vice chair of the standing committee on finance (from 1998 to 2002), member of the general council of the Riksbank (the Swedish central bank), member of the Committee on European Union Affairs, second vice president of the Christian Democrats in 2005, and minister for local government and financial markets in 2006.

David Osimo European Commission - DG JRC - Institute for Prospective Technological Studies

In 2005, David Osimo joined the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, based in Seville and which forms part of the DG JRC of the European Commission, where he is coordinating research activities on eGovernment. Previously, he worked as advisor and project manager on public policies for innovation and information society in Milan (I), Brussels (B) and Bologna (I). His current interests cover the role of government in the innovation system, the impact of technology on future models of government and, in particular, the impact of Web 2.0 on public services.

Zoltan Somodi State Secretary for Information Technology in the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Romania

Zoltán Somodi is currently the State Secretary for Information Technology in the Romanian Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.

His position entails the coordination of measures and actions necessary to boost the development of the Romanian IT sector and supporting and promoting strategies, policies and projects in order to establish an information society in Romania. He also plays an active role in promoting Romanian IT investment opportunities among the biggest IT companies and ensures permanent dialogue with professional organisations in the field.

Prior to his current position, Zoltán Somodi was operational manager of the Knowledge Economy Project at the ministry of communication and information technology. His task was to link the different components of the project, such as eGovernment, eBusiness and eLearning. He joined the ministry in February 2005 as advisor to the minister. He has recently been involved in a range of IT and eGovernment projects for the Romanian Government. He is a member of the coordination team for the design of the Romanian eGovernment strategy.

Until 2005, he worked as an assistant professor at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca. His main subjects were computer programming and operation systems. He was involved in many research projects with a focus on operation systems and computer networks.

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Zoltán Somodi graduated from the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca in 2001 with a degree in Computer Engineering. He completed a post-graduate course at the same university in New Generation Computer Systems. He is currently a PhD student in the research area of computer networks, focusing on the new internet protocol, IPv6.

Harald Lemke Secretary of State, State Commissioner for eGovernment and IT, Department of Finance, Department of the Interior, State of Hesse, Germany

Born in Reinbek (Germany), he is married with two daughters.

He holds a degree in Computer Sciences from the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg and he has extensive experience as a programmer and analyst in the fields of scientific computing.

He was account manager for public services for several organisations, such as Digital Equipment Corporation (systems engineer) and Nixdorf Computer Corporation.

He worked for the Hamburg City Council, where he held the positions of head of IT for public hospitals and head of the Hamburg data centre.

He then moved to IBM Corporation Germany, where he worked as project manager .

He worked for Hamburg City Council as head of IT for the Hamburg Police Department. He also worked for the federal criminal police office in Wiesbaden, where he was a member of the board of directors (and head of IT). In 2003 he was appointed secretary of state of Hesse, and commissioner for eGovernment and IT (CIO).

Francisco García Morán Director General, DIGIT

Francisco García Morán holds a degree in Mathematics from the University of Seville and a degree in Computer Science from the Polytechnic University of Madrid.

He started his career at the University of Seville and the ministry of education and science of the regional government of Andalusia, where he worked as head of IT services.

Since joining the European Commission in November 1986, he has continued working in the IT area, first at the Informatics Directorate and then at the Directorate-General for Translation.

In 2001, he was appointed director of informatics at the Directorate-General for Personnel and Administration. He was responsible for establishing the Directorate-General for Informatics (DIGIT) in May 2004, of which he was appointed Director General in November 2005.

The Directorate-General for Informatics defines the IT strategy of the European Commission, provides its ICT infrastructure and, since January 2007, has also been responsible for the IDABC programme (Interoperable Delivery of pan-European eGovernment Services to Public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens).

He is member of the management board of ENISA

Jan Muehlfeit Chairman Europe, Microsoft Europe

Jan Muehlfeit is responsible for engaging with European governments and policy-makers, academics and other societal stakeholders in Brussels and throughout the EU

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Member States. His goal is to ensure that Microsoft continues to act as a trusted, open partner that listens and contributes to Europe’s agenda, enabling long-term growth, local economic competitiveness and job creation and innovation.

In his previous roles, as vice president of public sector and lately as vice president for corporate and government strategy, Jan Muehlfeit was responsible for promoting Microsoft solutions for public-sector organisations and delivering an excellent customer and industry partner experience. He also led Microsoft’s efforts to constructively support the policy goals of governments in EMEA, from employment and social issues through to competitiveness and economic growth.

Muehlfeit joined Microsoft in 1993 and, during his seven years in the company’s Czech and Slovak operations, headed a variety of departments, including marketing and sales. In 1998, Muehlfeit was named general manager of Microsoft Czech Republic. Despite the challenging economic environment, his team generated remarkable results, and Muehlfeit became known for his dedication to the success of Microsoft partners and customers in the region. In 2000, he became regional director of Microsoft Eastern Europe and was promoted to vice president in 2002. Under his leadership, Microsoft’s business expanded substantially in the region, with new offices opening in several countries. In 2004-2005, Jan was also part of Microsoft’s international emerging markets executive board.

Born in 1962, Muehlfeit grew up in Czechoslovakia. He received a computer science degree from the Czech Technical University in 1986 and, before joining Microsoft, worked in the public sector as a programmer and information systems manager. Later, he was director of international sales and marketing for Software602, a Czech software development company. Muehlfeit continues to support several charities, including PCs Against Barriers, a joint initiative of Microsoft Czech Republic and a Czech NGO. Muehlfeit has received numerous awards, including Best Manager of Czech Republic for 1999 from the Czech prime minister, the Czech Brain Award, presented by the Czech minister of foreign affairs, and he has been named Czech IT Personality of the Year three times. He also serves on the supervisory board of the Charta 77 Foundation and is a board member of the European Academy of Business in Society (EABiS) and Junior Achievement Young Enterprise Europe (JAYE).

Vasileios Andronopoulos Ministry of the Interior, Public Administration, Greece

Since 2004, he has been General Secretary of Public Administration and eGovernment at the Ministry of the Interior, Public Administration and Decentralisation, Athens.

He was previously vice president at the higher council of public sector personnel selection (Α.Σ.Ε.Π.), and counsellor at the higher council of public sector personnel selection (Α.Σ.Ε.Π.) in Athens.

Before that, he gained extensive experience as general director at the ministry of the government presidency/ministry of the interior, public administration and decentralisation; he was also the Greek representative at the Executive Council of the European Institute on Public Administration, Maastricht, Netherlands (1991-1999) and, in the same period, the Greek representative at the OECD Committee on Public Administration (PUMA).

His previous experience from 1975 to 1991 was as director at the ministry of the government presidency.

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Gregor Virant Minister of Public Administration, Slovenia

Gregor Virant was born on 4 December 1969 in Ljubljana. He studied law at the faculty of law of the University of Ljubljana, where he also acquired his doctorate in law. He furthered his education at Glasgow Caledonian University.

Dr Gregor Virant is a professor at the administration faculty of the University of Ljubljana. From 1995 to 1999, he was legal adviser at the constitutional court. From June 2000 to August 2004, he held the position of state secretary for public administration. He was a member of the national electoral commission, a member of the council of officials representing professional experts, and represented Slovenia on the OECD Public Governance Committee (until August 2004), as well being involved in the European coordination of general directors responsible for the field of public governance (from June 2000 to August 2004).

Dr Virant is the author of numerous expert and scientific articles in the area of constitutional and administrative law, as well as in the sphere of public administration, and has also written a university text book entitled Regulation of Public Administration. He speaks English and French.

Matt Poelmans Director, e-Citizen Programme, ICTU, the Netherlands

Matt J. Poelmans is Director of the Dutch e-Citizen Programme, which aims to improve eGovernment through the empowerment of citizens. Until 2004, he was manager of the eGovernment Competence Centre. Both programmes are run by ICTU, the ICT implementation organisation for the public sector, founded by the ministry of the interior. Previously, he was in charge of the One-Stop-Service delivery programme (OL2000).

Poelmans studied business administration at Nyenrode Business School and graduated with a degree in political science from the University of Amsterdam. He was active in local politics as a councillor and was deputy Mayor for the town of Oegstgeest near Leiden, where he was responsible for finance, information policy and local government reform. Moreover, Poelmans has been vice president of the Dutch Liberal Democrat party (D66) and a member of the provincial council of South Holland. At present, he is Vice Chairman of the Dutch Web Accessibility Foundation.

Before entering politics, he worked with the SER (social-economic council) and the ministry of the interior (BZK).

Leonie Lunny Chief Executive, Citizens Information Board

Leonie is the Chief Executive of the Citizens Information Board, which is an Irish statutory body with responsibility for the provision of information, advice and advocacy services. The organisation has particular responsibility for the mainstreaming of such services for people with disabilities.

She has been involved in the provision of information and advisory services for many years and worked as the director of the national social service board prior to 2000, when the organisation was involved in a merger with another statutory body. This merger was in the context of mainstreaming services for people with disabilities. Over the years, she has overseen the substantial development of the independent network of citizen information services throughout the country and the development of a national citizens information phone service. These organisations are independent voluntary bodies and are funded and supported by the Citizens Information Board and, in addition to the

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citizens information website, provide a three-channel approach to ensure that citizens can use the service that is most suitable to their needs.

Constantijn van Oranje-Nassau Senior Advisor to RAND Europe

Constantijn van Oranje has master degrees in Law from Leiden University and in Business Administration from INSEAD at Fontainebleau. He is head of the Information Policy and Economics team at RAND Europe. His current research is mainly focused in the area of pan-European aspects of eGovernment service delivery and design, including identity management and impact assessments of policies relating to the information society. Before joining RAND Europe, Mr Van Oranje worked as an associate analyst for Booz Allen and Hamilton, where he worked on a variety of projects in ICT and print media. Research work included a benchmarking study for the UK Government on the readiness of e-infrastructure, e-commerce and eGovernment. This was preceded by five years at the European Commission, working in the cabinet of Commissioner Van den Broek.

Reinhard Posch CIO, Federal Government Austria

Born in1951, he is married with three children.

Since 2001, Reinhard Posch has been the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Government of Austria. The role of the CIO for the federal government involves primarily the strategic coordination of activities in the field of information and communications technology. As such, the CIO heads the Austrian eGovernment platform, DIGITAL AUSTRIA. In 2007, he was elected Chair of the management board of the European Network and Information Security Agency, ENISA.

Educated at Graz University of Technology, where he earned a degree in engineering and a PhD, Reinhard was appointed assistant professor and later full professor. He is head of the Institute for Applied Information Processing and Communications at Graz University of Technology. Since 1999, he has been Scientific Director of the Austrian Security Information Technology Centre (A-SIT).

Robert Verrue Director General responsible for Taxation and the Customs Union, European Commission

Robert Verrue started his career in the private sector in 1972-73 as financial manager at SSIH (Switzerland). In 1973, he joined the European Commission as a member of the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs. In 1981, he was appointed member of the cabinet of Vice-President F.X. Ortoli. His main responsibilities covered financial and economic affairs, borrowing and lending, and restructuring actions in the steel and iron industry.

In 1985, he was appointed head of division for the coordination of monetary policies in the Community in the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs. In July 1988, he was promoted and became the director responsible for international affairs, industrial policy and the coordination of the Internal Market Programme in Directorate-General for the Internal Market and Industrial Affairs. In September 1993, he was appointed Deputy Director General responsible for relations with central European countries and CIS republics within the Directorate-General for External Relations. In January 1996, he became director general for the Information Society. He took up his current position as Director General for Taxation and the Customs Union at the European Commission in July 2002.

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Robert Verrue studied at the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce et d’Administration des Entreprises in Lille, at the College of Europe (Bruges) and INSEAD (Fontainebleau).

He was born in 1947. He is married and has two children.

Frank Paul Head of Unit, Large-Scale IT Systems, European Commission Directorate-General for Justice, Freedom and Security

Frank Paul heads the Large-Scale IT Systems Unit within the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Justice, Freedom and Security. His unit deals mainly with EURODAC (an automated fingerprint identification system), the development of the second-generation SIS (Schengen Information System, one of the biggest border control and police information systems worldwide); the future VIS (Visa Information System); as well as the feasibility aspects of a possible future European Penal Records Register. In addition, his unit is responsible for general biometric coordination of the area of justice, security and freedom. Coming from the Commission’s Legal Service, he joined the then Task Force Justice and Home Affairs (now a Directorate-General) in 1998 and, before his appointment as head of unit, Dr Paul worked as a project manager for EURODAC on a variety of legal and organisational issues, all related to asylum and immigration.

Anabela Pedroso President of AMA – Agency for Public Service Reform

President of AMA – Agency for Public Services Reform, since 14 December 2006, and worked in the UMIC, (Knowledge Society Agency) from 2005, responsible for the eGovernment area, leading projects such as the Citizen’s Website, the Official Portuguese Business Website, Enterprises Life Cycle, the Public Administration Interoperability Platform, etc. She was also responsible for the UMIC (Unity of Mission for Innovation and Knowledge) between 2003-2005.

She is a member of the coordinate council of UCMA (Unity of Coordination for the Services Modernisation), where she leads the Citizen’s Card project.

Prior to joining the agency, she was secretary general in the ministry of finance (2001–2003), responsible for the ICT area. She undertook activities such as the implementation of an internal integrated information system, witch was honoured with a best practices in public administration award in 2003.

Between 1999 and 2001, she worked with the administration of the Management Institute of the Citizen’s Shops. Prior to that, she led the team that developed the Citizen’s Shops in Portugal (1997- 1999), and designed and implemented the technological model that supports the operation of the shops.

She held technical positions at the ministry of finance, where she started her work in the Portuguese public administration (Informatics Institute, 1977). She was in the team that created the Government Informatics Network. She worked on the introduction of the electronic bureau system in the ministry of finance and was a teacher in the REPER (Portuguese Permanent Representation to the European Union).

She has worked with the INA (National Administration Institute) since 1986, where she is responsible for the coordination of several diplomas in the rationalisation and reengineering processes area. She lectures at the ISCTE, a public university institute. She is the national member of the European workgroups EPAN, MODINIS, i2010 eGov Subgroup and Porvoo Group (eID).

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Gillian Merron Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office and Minister for the East Midlands, United Kingdom

Gillian was appointed Cabinet Office Minister and Minister for the East Midlands in June 2007. Before joining the Cabinet Office, she was parliamentary under secretary of state, responsible for transport; and government whip for Lords Commissioner to HM Treasury .

Furthermore, Gillian was assistant government whip and parliamentary private secretary to three government ministers: Doug Henderson MP, Minister for the Armed Forces; Right Hon. Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean, Minister for Defence Procurement; and Right Hon. Dr John Reid MP, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

Gillian Merron was elected MP for Lincoln in 1997.

Gillian was born on 12 April 1959. She was educated at Wanstead High School and Lancaster University, where she gained a BSc (Hons) in Management Sciences. She started work in 1982 as a business development adviser. She later became a local government officer and a trade union official for NUPE and then UNISON.

Mogens Schmidt Deputy Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, UNESCO

Mogens Schmidt has been Deputy Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information and Director of the Division for Freedom of Expression, Democracy and Peace at UNESCO since 2003.

He was born in Holstebro, Denmark, on 15 February 1950. He studied Scandinavian Literature and Languages at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, from 1968 to 1974. After graduating, he taught literature and mass communication at the University of Aarhus from 1974 until 1981. In 1981, he was appointed head of the unit for the development of curricula at the humanistic faculty of the University of Aarhus. He held this position until he was appointed managing director of the Danish School of Journalism in 1988.

During his period at the helm of the Danish School of Journalism, he was one of the founders of the European Journalism Training Association in 1989. His dedication to international collaboration was also expressed in the substantial media and journalism training assistance projects run by the Danish School of Journalism in the Baltics, central and eastern Europe and the Balkans, as well as Mongolia, Mozambique and Cambodia. In 1995, he was called to assume the position of director at the European Journalism Centre in Maastricht, the Netherlands.

In 2001, Schmidt joined the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) as assistant director general with special responsibility for the press freedom work of WAN and its editorial organisation, the World Editors Forum. He also served as chief financial officer until he joined UNESCO in 2003.

Mogens Schmidt has extensive experience in the administration of media development and journalism training programmes. He is also very experienced in project work in developing countries and in countries in transition, both in the design and implementation phase. He is the author of many books and articles on issues related to journalism, mass communication and freedom of the press.

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Emilie McCabe General Manager, IBM Global Public Sector

Emilie McCabe is the General Manager of IBM’s global public sector, responsible for setting the strategy, direction and sales execution of information technology solutions and capabilities for government, education and healthcare/life sciences clients and prospective customers worldwide.

Ms McCabe has more than 28 years of experience in the information technology industry, with an extensive background in sales, marketing and business management. Before moving to her current position, she was vice president of worldwide sales, for IBM’s Systems and Technology Group, representing all of IBM’s hardware offerings. Prior to this, Ms McCabe led hardware sales for the USA, Canada and Latin America, restoring the business to consistent growth and share gain. Ms McCabe held a number of executive positions in IBM’s Software Group, including that of vice president of worldwide sales for the WebSphere portfolio; vice president of marketing for application development software, and vice president of worldwide software sales operations.

Ms McCabe participates in IBM’s accessibility task force, and recently addressed the UN’s global initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (G3ict) on the economic value of accessibility. She also serves as a Senior Executive Sponsor for IBM’s Native American Task Force, whose mission is to establish a strategy and define support programmes for this constituency in areas such as recruiting, community outreach and awareness. Ms McCabe was recently recognised as one of the 25 top government channel leaders in Government VAR’s Partner Program Guide, and serves as a member of the Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF), a non-profit organisation of Fortune 500 CEOs, college and university leaders and foundation executives focused on issues of strategic importance to business and higher education.

Ms McCabe holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Harry van Zon Director of Innovation and Public Sector Information Policy for the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, the Netherlands

Mr van Zon is Director of Innovation and Public Sector Information Policy in the Netherlands. Between 1982 and late 2000, his positions included that of director of financial and economic affairs and deputy director-general for public administration for the same ministry, director-general at the ministry of agriculture, nature management and fisheries, and member of the board of directors at the social security bank. Mr van Zon has also worked as an independent consultant and associate partner with Boer and Croon Process Managers.

Heidi Grande-Røys Minister of Government Administration and Reform, Norway

Ms Grande Røys was born in 1967 in Bremanger, Sogn og Fjordane.

After completing Flora secondary school, she gained her nursery school teaching diploma at Bergen Teacher’s College, Bergen. She studied organisation and leadership at Lillehammer Regional College.

Heidi Grande Røys was employed as department leader and director at Havrenes nursery school in the period from 1989 till 2001. She was a member of Flora City Council and the council’s executive committee, and a member of parliament for the Socialist Left Party and of the parliamentary finance committee from 2001 to 2005.

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Ms Grande Røys served as vice president of the county party organisation (the Socialist Left Party) and political adviser for the party’s parliamentary group, and has been a member of the Socialist Left Party’s programme committee since 2000.

Sven Forster Director of Information Management, Fedict, Belgium

Sven Forster started his career in 1992 in the industry as a supply chain professional. He broadened his experience in supply chain management, ERP and management information systems by working for different industries and consulting companies before joining Fedict in June 2002 as Director for Information Management.

Fedict is the Belgian federal public service for ICT and eGovernment, created in 2001 in order to develop and promote eGovernment initiatives.

Today’s working areas aim to implement information management in a distributed environment and identify opportunities and business cases for new eGovernment services. For the latter, Fedict has launched different initiatives in the past three years in order to assess administration readiness and customer expectations, and has recently developed an impact measurement dashboard.

Darrell West Professor of Political Science, Brown University

Darrell M. West is the John Hazen White Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and Director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University. He is the author of 15 books dealing with media, technology, and public policy-making. His books include Digital Government: Technology and Public Sector Performance, Princeton University Press, 2005), Biotechnology Policy Across National Boundaries (Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), and Air Wars: Television Advertising in Election Campaigns (Congressional Quarterly Press, 2005), among others. Since 2000, he has undertaken annual studies of the government websites of the 70 largest cities in the United States of America, the 50 American states, and 198 nations around the world. His reports are published online at InsidePolitics.org.

An interview with Darrell West conducted prior to the conference is available on the conference website in the section entitled Presentations and Speeches.

Frank Mordacq Director General for State Modernisation, France

Born in Brive in 1958, and married with four children, Frank Mordacq received his DEA (post-graduate diploma) in Public Law and was a laureate at the Institut d’Études Politiques in Paris.

Appointed to the budget branch of the ministry of finance in 1985 upon leaving the École Nationale d’Administration (Leonardo da Vinci graduation year), Frank Mordacq worked initially on the public service remuneration file and subsequently on the ground transportation file.

After spending two years in New York as the financial attaché at France’s permanent mission to the United Nations, he returned in 1992 to the budget branch and was responsible for two sectors, industry and energy and, subsequently, transport and transportation companies.

In 1995, Frank Mordacq left the sectoral area to occupy a number of different posts within the budget branch: chief of office, chief of service and deputy director. Among

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other things, he was responsible for the definition of the policy on salaries and employees of the state and, subsequently, the summary of the general policy on public finances.

In March 2003, he was appointed as head of the new budgetary reform branch at the ministry of finance, which led to the implementation of the constitutional bylaw of 1 August 2001 on budgetary acts (LOLF).

In January 2006, he became Director General for State Modernisation, responsible at the interministerial level for coordinating, assisting and encouraging all levels of the administration to achieve the goal of modernising state operations and management. The branch brings together initiatives related to the implementation of the new management policy derived from the LOLF, eGovernment, and service quality improvements and administrative simplification.

Manuel Ricou Member of the Board of Management of ANCP, E.P.E., the Portuguese Agency for Public Procurement

Manuel Ricou was recently appointed to the Board of Management of ANCP, E.P.E., the Portuguese Agency for Public Procurement, created in 2007 as the new hub of the public procurement system in Portugal. ANCP is also the agency responsible for the national electronic procurement programme. He was previously a member of the board of the UMIC, the Portuguese agency for the knowledge society, where he was responsible for several related areas such as eCommerce, telecommunications cost rationalisation in the public administration, digital cities and regions, and community networks. He has taught at the Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon Technical University, since 1972, in positions ranging from teaching assistant to associate professor.

He was previously general manager of the switching and routing division of Alcatel Portugal (2000-2003), where he was also project manager (1989-1994), director of development services (1994-1996), director of engineering (1996-1999), and the first director of the competence centre (1999-2000) created in 1998 for the design, development and marketing in the worldwide telecommunications network management systems market. He was also an adviser to the secretary of state for economic development in the XVI constitutional government for the area of innovation (2004-2005), especially for the support of technological innovation under the PRIME programme.

He has held several other positions in various organisations, such as the Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications, University of Minnesota, USA (1984-1985, 1987); School of Mathematics, University of Minnesota, USA (1976-1983); and the Gulbenkian Institute of Science (1972-76).

He holds the following university degrees: PhD (1984) in Mathematics from the School of Mathematics, University of Minnesota, USA; Electrical Engineer (Telecommunications and Electronics) (1975) from IST, Lisbon Technical University.

Rein Lang Minister of Justice, Estonia

Rein Lang became the Minister of Justice in April 2005. Before that, he held the office of foreign minister. He was elected to parliament in 2003, where he led the commission on EU affairs. He represented the parliament in the European Convention and was the vice mayor of Tallinn in 2001. Rein Lang participated as a legal expert in the drafting of the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia. Lang has been a member of the Reform Party since 1995.

Before going into politics, Rein Lang became known as a businessman in the fields of media and entertainment, as well as a radio journalist. Most of all, he was well-

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known as the sharp-tongued political commentator and anchorman of a popular radio programme.

Prof. Dr Yao-Hua Tan Vrije University, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Yao-Hua Tan is Professor of Electronic Business at the Department of Economics and Business Administration of the Vrije University, Amsterdam. He was also the Reynolds visiting professor at the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania.

His research interests include virtual relationship building in business-to-business electronic commerce; the role of trust as a facilitator for company participation in electronic commerce; ICT-enabled electronic negotiation and contracting; and the use of artificial intelligence techniques to enable automation of business procedures in international trade.

Manfred Matzka Director General, Federal Chancellery, Austria

Born in 1950 in Waidhofen, Austria, he completed his university studies at the Law Faculty of Vienna University in 1975.

Since 1972, he has been Assistant Teacher at the Vienna Faculty of Law, Institute for Roman Law and, since 1975, Assistant Professor at the Institute for Constitutional and Public Law.

In the period between 1980 and 1987, he was adviser and then deputy director in the legal service of the Austrian federal chancellery (main responsibilities: constitutional law, administrative organisation, human rights, data protection).

He has worked as personal legal adviser to the minister for public Health and civil service (responsibility: legal issues in the public health sector), chief of cabinet of the Austrian ministry of the interior; director general at the ministry of the interior (aliens law, asylum and refugees, passports, citizenship, migration), ministerial coordinator for the EU and Schengen, holding chairs in Schengen and EU working groups and steering groups.

He was director general of section I of the Austrian federal chancellery in 1999 (organisation, staff, budget, ICT, information security, central press service, coordination of interministerial projects, protocol, central services), and lecturer at the University of Vienna, with board functions at several Austrian state enterprises and state agencies, and member of the Austrian Constitution Convent (2004-2005).

He has published a considerable number of articles in law journals and monographs in the field of data protection law, constitutional law, state history, citizenship law and European migration policy, and articles in newspapers and books about Austria and historic buildings in Vienna.

He is married to Anica Matzka-Dojder, directing nurse and member of the Vienna City Parliament.

Martin Schallbruch Chief Information Officer of the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Germany

Martin Schallbruch is responsible for the IT strategy and IT coordination within the federal government. Project management in relation to the BundOnline eGovernment initiative and the coordination of the Deutschland-Online eGovernment strategy are some of the responsibilities of his office. Mr Schallbruch oversees the IT security policy

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of the federal government, and his office is responsible for the supervision of the Federal Office for Information Security. He is also responsible for the passport and ID card service of the federal government. Before being appointed CIO, he was the personal assistant of State Secretary Zypries at the ministry of the interior.

Trained at the Technical University in Berlin, where he received an MSc. in Computer science, Mr Schallbruch was a research fellow at Humboldt University, Berlin, before he was appointed head of the university IT service centre.

Guy Giles Operations Manager, DigiTV

Guy Giles is the Operations Manager for DigiTV, Looking Local. As one of the former ODPM sponsored national projects, DigiTV was launched in September 2003 and focuses on delivering a viable working solution for local governments keen to exploit digital interactive TV and mobile phones as additional channels for service delivery.

The cornerstone of the project has been the development of a content management system and plug-in technology suitable for the delivery of integrated local authority services across SKY, NTL, Telewest, Freeview and all of the major UK mobile phone networks. He is responsible for the delivery and rollout of the Starter Kit, and was involved in its development from the outset. Working closely with both local authorities and the various platforms, the Starter Kit is now being used by over 80 local authorities and other public sector bodies across the UK.

With 10 years of management consultancy and software development experience in the public and private sector, he has a passion for delivering government services on these emerging channels. These new channels are set to witness fundamental changes to the way citizens interact with government over the next five years. In whatever spare time he has, he enjoys playing squash, music and the challenges of fatherhood!

Yvon Le Roux Vice-President, Public Sector Cisco Systems, European Markets

As Vice-President of the Public Sector for Cisco in the European Markets, Yvon Le Roux is responsible for the strategy, sales and marketing in the government, healthcare, education and defence markets. He was appointed to lead and create the Public Sector team in May 2003, now one of the fastest growing segments in Europe.

His vision is to “unleash the power of the network in the public sector to improve quality, reach and cost of public services”. His team develops solutions to help public sector organisations connect, communicate and collaborate with citizens, businesses and other departments and agencies to create an interactive human network for government.

Le Roux joined Cisco in 1996 as vice-president for EMEA South, which included operations in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Germany and Africa. Prior to Cisco, he held a number of senior positions at IT companies, spanning several territories. His career began at Sperry Computer Systems before he moved to Matra Informatique as president in 1984.

As part of his remit, Le Roux oversees the Cisco Networking Academy Program in Europe and Emerging Markets, a highly successful public-private partnership between business, government and educational institutions. The programme teaches thousands of students every year how to design, build and maintain computer networks: skills that countries need to compete in the global digital economy. The gap in advanced networking skills is still a serious issue, with studies commissioned by Cisco identifying that there is a skills gap of half a million people across Europe. This figure represents an average advanced technology skills gap of 15.8% by 2008. In one-third of the 31

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countries surveyed, demand for these skills will outstrip supply by more than 20% in 2008,

Le Roux is also responsible for helping public sector customers secure funding from different government bodies for programmes such as providing broadband to citizens and businesses. In addition, he has launched a number of research projects exploring the effects of IT on the public sector, such as Net Impact: From Connectivity to Productivity and, most recently, Shared Services in Government. Building a Platform for Better Public Services at Lower Cost, May 2007, by AT Kearney.

Le Roux is a regular speaker at public sector conferences such as the European Commission eSkills Leadership Board and Cisco’s own conferences, the e-Leaders Forums and, most significantly, the Public Services Summit. This worldwide summit is a unique event in the public sector calendar, highlighting a long-standing relationship between Cisco and the global leaders who are shaping policy in the public sector.

Le Roux, a native French speaker, is also fluent in English and Italian. Having lived and worked in the United States of America, the UK, Sweden, France and Italy, he now resides in Paris with his family. He enjoys sailing and skiing in his spare time.

Catherine Trautmann MEP, European Parliament

Catherine Trautmann (*1951, Strasbourg, France) has been an MEP (PES) since June 2004 (and previously between 1989 and 1994). She studied theology in Strasbourg (Master’s degree, specialising in History of Religions, Coptic Language and Literature). She is currently Vice-Chairwoman of the ITRE Committee (Industry, Research and Energy) at the European Parliament, and substitute at the Culture and Education Committee. From 1989 until 1997 (and also between 2000 and 2001) she was mayor of Strasbourg. In 1997, she left this post in accordance with the policy of non-collection of mandates; that year, after her victory at the parliamentary elections, she was invited by prime minister Lionel Jospin to become culture and communication minister (1997-2000), as well as government spokesperson (1997-1998). Her political career also encompasses the posts of MP (1986-1988); secretary of state in charge of the elderly and disabled people (1988); and president of the inter-ministerial mission on (drug) addictions (1988-1989). Since 2000, she has been a member of the French Socialist Party’s national bureau. She is also a Knight of the Legion of Honour, Commander of the Order of Arts and Literature, and Doctor honoris causa (Leicester University).

P. Nikiforos Diamandouros European Ombudsman

Born in Athens, Greece, in 1942, he has a PhD (1972) from Columbia University.

He was awarded teaching and research appointments at the State University of New York and Columbia University respectively (1973-1978), and was director of development at Athens College from 1980 to 1983.

Program director for Western Europe and the Near and Middle East at the Social Science Research Council, New York (1983-88), he was then appointed associate professor (1988-1993) and then Professor (since 1993) of comparative politics at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration of the University of Athens (currently on leave).

Director and chairman of the Greek National Centre for Social Research (EKKE) (1995-98), he was the first national ombudsman of Greece (1998-2003).

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Rogério Carapuça Chairman and CEO, Novabase SGPS (Portugal)

Rogério Carapuça has been Chairman and CEO of Novabase SGPS since 1999, where he was previously member of the board (from 1994 to 1999). During this period, first as member of the board and then as Chairman, Novabase grew from a turnover of about 4 million euros (1994) to 226 million euros and 1,326 employees (in 2005). In terms of share capital value, Novabase grew from 2.8 million euros in 1994 to around 180 million euros in 2005. Novabase is today the largest Portuguese information technology (IT) company, and one of the fastest-growing European IT companies in recent years (43% average growth per year since 1999), 21.4% of its turnover originating from outside Portugal. Mr Carapuça holds a PhD. in Electronic Engineering and Computing from the Technical University of Lisbon, where he was assistant professor from 1988 to 1994, coordinator of the digital systems and computing section from 1992 to 1994, as well as coordinator of the INESC computing systems centre from 1991 to 1994. Mr Carapuça is currently a member of the Consulting Board of the Portuguese Government Technological Plan, a member of the Strategic Business Board of the AIP (Portuguese industrial association), and a member of the Portuguese Institute of Corporate Governance.

Piotr Nowina-Konopka President of the Polish Robert Schuman Foundation

Dr Piotr Nowina Konopka has been President of the Polish Robert Schuman Foundation (PFS), which he created in January 1991 together with Polish prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, for 16 years.

Under his leadership, the foundation worked for years as the successful promoter of European integration among Polish society, in particular focusing on schools, universities, local governments and multiple NGOs. It disseminates information on the European Union, its history, values and policies countrywide, involving thousands of teachers and local leaders. PFS publications and the website, www.schuman.org.pl, have become very popular, along with many programmes, including the annual Polish European Meetings with the Schuman Parade as the most visible event commemorating Europe Day in Central Europe, always attracting thousands of participants.

The most demanding programme was run on the eve of the Polish 2003 referendum on joining the European Union. The Polish Robert Schuman Foundation became a main actor, organising a citizen campaign in favour of voting yes in the referendum. The success of this campaign may be measured against the extremely positive outcome of the vote, as well as the high level of participation.

Continuing its activities since Poland’s accession, in 2005 PFS launched an Internet game, BeMEP, first in Polish (achieving an extremely high level of participation) and then EU-wide. The main task was, by simulating being Member of the European Parliament individually and through political groups, to increase participants’ knowledge and interest in the European Parliament and the European Union. This formula of learning and entertainment received very enthusiastic reactions, with 20,000 visits www.bemep.eu visits daily and huge media interest. BeMEP is considered one of most successful programmes run by an NGO.

Following his academic career at Gdansk University, Dr Piotr Nowina-Konopka took an active part in Polish democratic opposition, serving as adviser to Solidarnosc and as spokesman for the “S” leader, Lech Walesa (1982-1989). From 1989 onwards, he held a number of governmental positions, including minister of state, and was twice secretary of state for European affairs, as well as Pl-EU deputy head negotiator. He served as a member of the Polish Parliament for three terms from 1991-2001 and was vice-rector of the College of Europe, Bruges, and head of Natolin campus from 1999-2004. Currently, he is the European Parliament Director of Relations with National Parliaments.

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Guido Bertucci Director of the Division for Public Administration and Development Management, United Nations

Guido Bertucci is currently in charge of the United Nations Programme on Public Administration, Finance and Development, which promotes sound public policy, good governance and efficient and competent public administration around the world.

He has been responsible for advocacy activities in governance and public administration at the global level and for promoting high-level intergovernmental discussions and consensus on public policy and governance for sustainable development. He has spearheaded and directed research and publications on emerging issues in public policy, governance and public administration. He has written, spoken and organised meetings worldwide on topics such as democratic governance, civil service reform, leadership, innovation in government and public administration, eGovernment, decentralisation, economic and social governance, ethics and integrity. He has been responsible for the creation and management of networks in governance and public administration, in particular, the United Nations Public Administration Network (UNPAN) with more than 30 international and regional partners. The web portal receives 2.5 million worldwide visitors per month. He has negotiated agreements and raised considerable financial resources with donor governments. He has managed large-scale departments and operations, including financial and human resources. He has taught, lectured and delivered training and provided advice and technical assistance to countries in the area of governance and public administration.

Mr Bertucci holds a degree in Political Science and a post-graduate degree in Administrative Sciences from the Catholic University of Milan. He has also received a number of honorary doctoral degrees.

He speaks fluent Italian, English, French and Spanish.

Timothy Berners-Lee Director, World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

A graduate of Oxford University, England, Tim Berners-Lee holds the 3Com Founders Chair and is Senior Research Scientist at the Laboratory for Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is Co-Director of the new Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI) and is a Chair in the Computer Science Department at the University of Southampton, UK. He directs the World Wide Web Consortium, founded in 1994.

In 1989, he invented the World Wide Web, an internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing while at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory. He wrote the first web client and server in 1990. His specifications of URIs, HTTP and HTML were refined as Web technology spread.

In 2001, he became a fellow of the Royal Society. He has been the recipient of several international awards, including the Japan Prize, the Prince of Asturias Foundation Prize, the Millennium Technology Prize and Germany’s Die Quadriga award. In 2004, he was knighted by H.M. Queen Elizabeth. He is the author of Weaving the Web.

José Manuel Alonso eGovernment Lead at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

José Manuel Alonso is currently the eGovernment Lead at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Prior to joining W3C, José was the manager of the W3C Spain Office for three years and also served as the advisory committee representative for CTIC (host of the Spain Office). He has broad experience in project management, software integration, customer relations, PR and IT consultancy. José received a Bachelor’s degree

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in Computer Science and a Master’s degree in Enterprise Application Integration, both from the University of Oviedo, where he also worked at its research and innovation departments as a researcher, developer and teacher. He also worked previously as a consultant and even founded his own web company back in 1997.

Prof. Mariano Gago Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education (since March 2005), in charge of Science and Technology, Information Society and Higher Education, Portugal

Professor José Mariano Gago is an experimental high energy physicist and Professor of Physics at IST (Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon) He graduated as an electrical engineer from the Technical University of Lisbon and obtained a PhD in Physics from the École Polytechnique in Paris. He worked for many years as a researcher at the European Organisation for Nuclear Physics (CERN), Geneva, and in the Portuguese Laboratory for Particle Physics (LIP), as chair. Prof. Gago is member of the CERN Council. He was also president of the National Board for Science and Technology and president of the Institute for Prospective Studies in Portugal.

As minister of science and technology from 1995-2002, he was responsible for science and technology and information society policies. He launched the Ciencia Viva movement to promote S&T culture and S&T in society. During the Portuguese EU presidency (2000), he prepared, along with the European Commission, the Lisbon Strategy for the European Research Area and for the Information Society in Europe. He also launched the Eureka-Asia Initiative in Macao in 1998.

He chaired, before taking office in 2005, the High Level Group on Human Resources for Science and Technology in Europe.

Prof. Gago is a former president of the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) and is currently a member of the board. He is also a member of the Academia Europea.

Mark MacGann Director General of EICTA

Mark MacGann is Director General of EICTA, the European Industry Association that is the voice of the information and communications technology and consumer electronics industries in Europe.

Mark joined EICTA from Brunswick Group, where he was an associate partner, working specifically within the TMT (telecom, media and technology) practice in Europe. Based in the Paris office of this leading global communications advisory firm, he advised on cross-border mergers and acquisitions in Europe and the USA.

Before joining Brunswick in 2001, he spent seven years at Alcatel, where he held senior European and international positions. He was director of European affairs during the deregulation of telecommunications in Europe, before being appointed vice president of strategic affairs for the company’s satellite division, with responsibility for global government and institutional relations. He also led the successful effort to win global spectrum rights and market access for SkyBridge, the global satellite-based broadband communications system.

Prior to that, he was a consultant with Euro RSCG in Paris, working on the communications and media aspects of privatisation in France. He began his career as an advisor to the president of the Rhône-Alpes region in France, responsible for attracting European structural funding and private investment to the region.

Mark holds Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and Economics from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, France and Kingston University, England. He is a member

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of the Management Board of the European Information and Network Agency (ENISA), and was recently appointed a member of the French Government’s advisory group on the future of the telecoms sector in France and Europe.

Graham Taylor Chief Executive of OpenForum Europe

Graham Taylor is Chief Executive of OpenForum Europe, which is not-for-profit, independent organisation and was launched in March 2002 to accelerate, broaden and strengthen the use of Open Source Software in business and government. OFE pursues the vision of an open, competitive European IT market by 2010 in line with the European Commission i2010 Strategy, with the mission of facilitating open competitive choice for IT users. OFE is supported by major IT suppliers, user organisations and national partners. OFE also works closely with other European and global organisations on specific initiatives, and in support of the use of Open Standards to avoid lock-in to proprietary solutions. With some 30 years of experience in the ICT industry, prior to OFE, Graham Taylor was a director at ICL, most recently employed as managing director of the Smart Card business, but with spells as its software business development manager, and head of The Solution Centre, ICL’s centre for the management of complex integration projects.

An interview with Graham Taylor conducted prior to the conference is available on the conference website in the Presentations and Speeches section.

Dr Gregor Virant Minister of Public Administration, Slovenia

Gregor Virant was born on 4 December 1969 in Ljubljana. He studied law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ljubljana, where he also acquired his doctorate in law. He furthered his education at Glasgow Caledonian University.

Dr Gregor Virant is a professor at the Faculty of Administration, University of Ljubljana. From 1995 to 1999, he was legal adviser at the constitutional court. From June 2000 to August 2004, he held the position of state secretary for public administration. He was a member of the National Electoral Commission and a member of the Council of Officials, representing professional experts. He represented Slovenia on the OECD Public Governance Committee (until August 2004) and was a member of the European Coordination of General Directors responsible for the field of public governance (from June 2000 to August 2004).

Dr Virant is the author of numerous expert and scientific articles in the area of constitutional and administrative law, as well as in the sphere of public administration, and has also written a university text book entitled Regulation of Public Administration. He speaks English and French.

Lisbon, Portugal 19 – 21 September 2007

The Portuguese Presidency of the European Union and the European Commission jointly organised the eGovernment Conference 2007 entitled Reaping the benefits of eGovernment on 19-21 September 2007 in Lisbon (PT). The goals of the conference were to take stock of and build on the achievements to date, accelerate further development and set directions for the coming years in relation to the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan.

The focus of the 2007 conference on better public services for growth and jobs, participation and transparency, social impact and cohesion and effective and efficient administration, with special emphasis on the local and regional level, aimed to illustrate the importance of eGovernment as building blocks for better public services. The event also provided a platform for high-level political debate and facilitated the exchange of ideas. Close to 1,200 participants attended the Ministerial eGovernment Conference 2007. It was the fourth in a series, the first having taken place in Brussels (BE) in 2001, the second in Como (IT) in 2003 and the third in Manchester (UK) in 2005, bringing together ministers and senior officials responsible for eGovernment in EU Member States, leading academics, and CEOs and senior managers from European industry to share ideas, experiences, and lessons learned.

The exhibition of the 52 selected finalists for the European eGovernment Awards 2007 took place on 19-21 September alongside the conference with the aim to demonstrate success cases in the area of eGovernment, highlighting the progress achieved in this field in various European countries in order to encourage and increase the implementation of good practices related to electronic administration in other countries and to provide a networking opportunity for the finalists and conference participants, as well as a real forum for the exchange of ideas and experiences under the ePractice.eu slogan: meet > learn > share.

European Commission, DG Information Society and Media - eGovernment & CIP Operations

http://ec.europa.eu/egovernment Contact:E-mail: [email protected]: +32 - (0)2 296 41 14Fax: +32 - (0)2 296 17 40 or +32 - (0)2 295 10 71

Ministerial eGovernment Conference 2007

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