Friday, December 10, 2004

Spains National ID Card Spain expects to implement a new intelligent ID card system by the end of 2007 Carlos Guadian of Spain has developed an excellent e-government weblog.  Carlos, who has some association with the University of Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, has an interesting, academic approach to egov. In a recent post, Carlos discusses Spain's recent initative to develop a new, intelligent national ID card which will facilitate a wide variety of personal and business transactions online.  Budgeted at $100 million Euros, the project is due for completion at the end of 2007.  The project is being directed by Spain's Interior Ministry which has had a national ID card in place for many years.  Now the card will have added intelligence and functionality.  Although many see the card as facilitative, there are many others who call it intrusive. Spanish card manufacturer Kalysis has a grand vision for the use of its technology. 10:28:14 AM    comment []

Monday, October 11, 2004

2004 Digital Government Awards The Center for Digital Government has announced the winners of the 2004 Digital Government Achievement awards.  Among the winners were the Utah Business Portal which placed second among Government to Business initiatives and the Utah Courts which placed fifth in the Government to Citizen category. William Heath of Kablenet has created this interesting forum for discussing what the ideal government should look like. The use of e-government services continues to grow in Italy: 2.1 million online business tax statements, 910,000 individual online tax statements filed, 45% of basic services now online Here are the latest recommendations of the eEurope Advisory Group along with the R&D focus. This new Catalunya portal really focuses on the needs of the citizen. In Spain, Novell announced new services for supporting online government. An here's an update on Europe's privacy initiative. Washington's Digital Archives went live this week. 2:50:59 PM    comment []

Monday, April 05, 2004

e-Government vs. the Real World Almost 87 million people live in Guangdong province, one of the areas of greater technology concentration Here's a great quote from the Renmin Ribao (Peoples' Daily) on the Chinese bureaucracy's acceptance of e-government: The government staff still love to work in the real world despite mounting calls for e-government services. I guess some people are still having a hard time making the connection between their cyber-world and everything else.  Like many of the rest of us, the Chinese are having a hard time with adoption which is critical to justify more e-government investment.  It is a priority here.  By the end of 2005, the Chinese hope to have broadband to 150 million people, 11 percent of the population. 4:56:46 PM    comment []

Monday, March 01, 2004

Chileans go online to file taxes A few months ago, I mentioned the growing interest in Chile for eGovernment.  Today, Forbes reports that 70% of Chileans file their taxes online.  Furthermore, 37% of homes with computers have broadband service.  Chile is increasingly urban, so expect these trends to continue. 1:02:30 PM    comment []

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

Malaysia eGov Roylim makes some comments about Malaysia's egov portals.  Malaysia has been trying hard to situate itself as a high tech capital.  They are situated right - sort of a bridge between the technology centers of Singapore / Hong Kong and the Muslim world.  The country is opening up investment opportunities and launched other management reforms.  Utah has discussed some joint online projects in the past through Utah State University contacts, but I think that has languished somewhat. 7:19:30 AM    comment []

Monday, January 12, 2004

Summit of the Americas The Summit of the Americas begins today in Monterrey, Mexico.  The Summit has set up the Virtual Parliament of the Americas, an on-line tool facilitating the interaction of parliamentarians.  There's some interesting stuff in the Summit Report, but relatively little on e-government and technology. I'm a little underwhelmed with Monterrey's (the host city) municipal website.  I know some great technologists who live in Monterrey.  Find the latest news from Monterrey on Milenio.com. related links: The Organization of American States 8:06:49 AM    comment []

Thursday, December 18, 2003

Favorite City Series I will be looking at some of my favorite cities from time to time (globally and in the U.S.) to see what ideas might be gleaned to improve our own websites.  Sevilla Sevilla, in my mind is the most typical of all Spanish cities.  Their municipal portal tries to portray a sense of being progressive with its use of flash in the introduction as well as the header and other visuals.  Its use of frames could be a problem, especially when bookmarking and linking to specific pages beyond the portal itself.  Content is up-to-date with features on the new metro (including online surveys, photos, etc.), the 2004 International Music Festival (featuring nine unique performances of Carmen), and the Christmas festivals (Sevilla is a party town -nothing beats April in Seville).  The city has a dynamic online traffic information system, but it is not graphical - it just lists the streets (color coded to represent the traffic flow at a given time).  Interactive services are very basic, but well designed. Prague Trying to figure out what is Prague's official site is difficult, Prague.cz?, Praha.cz?  PIS.cz appears to be official, but it is the home of the Prague Information Service and is directed at tourists and outsiders. A-ZPrague.cz is of the same mold. 9:01:53 AM    comment []

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

The Daily Summit and news from WSIS David Steven of The Daily Summit team sent me the link to The Daily Summit, another source of information and perspectives on the World Summit on the Information Society.  The Deputy Prime Minister of the Czech Republic is now speaking to the summit following leaders from Latvia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, etc.  Mugabe (president of Zimbabwe) was heavy with criticism of the U.S. and Britain, stating that they were using ICT to promote their world hegemony.  There is a lot of rhetoric here, I'm not sure what specific things will result from these meetings. Leonid Reiman of Russia is more focused on how ICT can be used to bring the world together.  He mentions eRussia as a project that is extending into all aspects of Russian society.  He also mentions concern over identity theft and support for e-commerce, a more positive perspective of technology than what we have heard from some of the developing country leaders. Andy Oram provides some thoughts on the WSIS. 10:17:53 AM    comment []

Tuesday, December 09, 2003

WSIS News Practical.org has set up a nice aggregated site to cover the World Summit on the Information Society being held this week in Geneva.  It officially begins tomorrow. On the eve of the conference, an alternative agenda is proceding under the title of WSIS? We Seize! with the goal of presenting a different vision of the information society based on horizontal networks and grassroots communication. 5:23:55 PM    comment []

Monday, December 01, 2003

eGov and Social Policy in Bio Bio Some new interest and excitement on e-governance coming out of the Bio Bio region of Chile. Jane Fontain, author of Building the Virtual State, visited Chile on November 14th. I'm not sure if that is what initiated this new interest, but I hope it can launch Chile into the forefront of e-government thought and innovation. I would love to see that coming from Latin America.  Concepcion, Chile's second largest city, is the regional capital. Boris Carikeo has started a blog on technology, public policy, and society. Boris informs us that the IACD and OAS are sponsoring a course on the formulation of e-government strategies. Karin Quiero has started an interesting blog on psychology and social policy. I am looking forward to some interesting content and ideas coming from these two sources. The Association of Municipalities for Local Economic Development is an example of progressive use of the web for local government cooperation in the Bio Bio region. Reykjavik wants to be the first city in the world with fiber to every home. They will have to compete with iProvo. The US Embassy in Iceland 7:38:05 AM    comment []

Friday, November 21, 2003

Internet in China The Markle Foundation recently completed a study of the impact of the internet in China.  According to Zoe Baird, "China is second only to the U.S. in the number of Internet users, with the number of users growing rapidly. The Internet has the potential to contribute significantly to the future of the people of China." The study was performed in 12 Chinese cities, with internet usage expectedly higher in coastal metropolises of Nanhai, Guangzhou, and Shanghai.  I am assuming that they are talking Nanhai in Guangdong province since it is larger than Nanhai, Hebei, but I'm not sure, because when they refer to Nanhai, they refer to it as a smaller city so it could be Nanhai, Hebei.  This really is a fascinating study that sheds a lot of light on the differences between different areas of China and how technology is affecting them. 7:57:17 AM    comment []

Friday, November 07, 2003

UN says E-Government is at a Crossroads Article in Government Technology magazine reviews some of the details of the Utah.gov portal and its creation. The UN's Global Forum on Re-Inventing Government, held this week in Mexico, makes recommendations for national governments to push forward with eGov initiatives.  The UN released a new report at the conference entitled "E-Government at the Crossroads."  The report states that security and privacy issues have discouraged many from using online government services which has resulted in low adoption rates.  It also includes a ranking of nations based on e-readiness, defined as the provision of government services and products online, combined with extensive telecom infrastructure and public education.  Here are the top 10: United States Sweden Australia Denmark Britain Canada Norway Switzerland Germany Finland Korea is working hard to break into the top 10. Mike Leavitt was sworn in as the EPA administrator yesterday.  He "immediately began a vigorous schedule of meetings with agency staff and management, pledged to seek collaboration in the application of a "balanced set of environmental principles" to protect the nation's environment." Duncan Smeed reports that shipments of Bluetooth products have now surpassed one million units per week.  He also references Java Bluetooth, a resource for developing Bluetooth applications with Java. 7:28:56 AM    comment []

Wednesday, November 05, 2003

News and Notes - Beijing Launches new eGov site Election results for yesterday's municipal elections are found on the State Elections Office website. The Salt Lake City Council has overturned Salt Lake Recorder Gary Ott and will respond to bulk record requests. The Navy is evaluating the use of blogs for project management. The city of Beijing has launched its first English-language eGov site.  The site, entitled Beijing International, is oriented towards tourists and business people visiting the city.  It comes on the 20th anniversary of a speech by Deng Xiaoping calling for China to embrace foreign expertise as a way to modernize China.  You can learn a lot of important things on this site like: "A foreigner, who owns an independent house and wants to purchase a small-sized dog as a pet, should submit an application to a local public security institution.  The eligible applicant should purchase a pet dog in a legal pet market with a pet dog purchasing certificate issued by a district or county's public security authority together with a pet dog keeping permit." 6:55:24 AM    comment []

Monday, September 29, 2003

France and Switzerland want progress on eGov Switzerland is not happy about being ranked 15th among 18 European countries in the area of e-government.  They launched a new initiative this morning aimed at enhancing their image as an internet-savvy nation. France is not happy either.  Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the French Prime Minister, is upset about the lack of ministerial cooperation on e-government and wants this to change immediately. 8:42:38 AM    comment []

Thursday, September 25, 2003

eGovernment News Paul Ford writes about the use of XML in the federal government. Uzbekistan is holding a summit on information and communications technology (ICT) and is setting e-government as a priority. South Korea is mandating the use of a standard IT architecture for administrative agencies and public organizations. South Africa is talking about e-governance at a national e-government summit in Johannesburg. The National Press Club will be discussing the Future of Electronic Government next Tuesday. The Indian government's blocking of Yahoo Groups is generating a lot of controversy. GIS in the Rockies is scheduled for Oct. 1-3. An article in Internet News talks about Microsoft as a potential national security threat. The September 2003 issue of Capitol Connections is online. 10:20:40 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 David Fletcher.