eGovernment specialists met in Prague
(Prague, 20 April 2007) -The fifth annual scientific conference called Eastern European eGovernment Days took place in Prague last week. The conference, which was aimed at supporting exchange of information and experience in the area of use of information technologies in state administration, was attended by more than 150 experts from all of Europe. It was organized by a group of partners, initiated by the Austrian Computer Society (OCG), supported by the federal government of Austria. On behalf of the Czech Republic, the conference was co-organized by EPMA - European Projects & Management Agency. The main partner of the conference was ANECT.
The event also included a panel discussion with the following speakers: Lenka Ptáčková, deputy minister of the interior of the Czech Republic, Ina Gudele, minister for eGovernment from Latvia, Gregor Virant, minister of public administration from Slovenia, Diana Šimić, deputy state secretary of the Croatian government, Miroslav Řihák, CEO, ANECT. He spoke on relationship between information technologies and public administration.
"In the area of ICT there are number of myths concerning public administration. For example, that the state is a special kind of company that must be managed centrally, that local governments are branches of the central government, or that implementation of information systems will solve all problems of the public administration. But it is not so simple," said Miroslav Řihák, CEO, ANECT a.s.
Number of other topics came up at the conference, for example transformation of processes in the public administration and governing in the information society, cooperation of academic institutions with the public administration, training and learning in eGovernment. The following issues were also analyzed during the event: how central authorities deal with new requirements for electronic services, how can small and medium-sized businesses find their way around in the new environment, what new obligations and rights do they have thanks to eGovernment, or what are the trends and experiences in the area of e-Taxation and other electronic services.
It was the second time the Eastern European eGovernment Days conference took place in Prague, as a three-day series of meetings of experts. Several project workshops took place on April 11, on April 12 and 13 the conference continued with a number of lectures and discussions. The event was jointly organized by a group of non-profit organizations: EPMA (Czech Republic), Austria's Forum eGovernment/OCG and the University of Linz (Austria), European network ePSIPlus and a group of expert from the Visegrád countries, with the support from Prague City Council (Magistrát hl.m. Prahy) and the region of Vysočina. The main partner of the conference was ANECT a.s.
