MyKad / Multipurpose Cards Delivering Citizen Services Faster: January 2007 Issue

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Volume III issue 1, January 2007

ISSN 0973-161X

The e-Government magazine for Asia and the Middle East

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MyKad / Multipurpose Cards

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Delivering Citizen Services Faster

MyKad: Technology for whom?

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Interview: Foo Jung Wei Oracle Corporation

34

e-Procurement impelentation in Selangor local governments

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6-8 February, 2007 Putrajaya International Convention Centre, Malaysia

Listen to key decision makers, experts, leaders in e-Government arena from Asia and beyond

Young Sik Kim e-Government Advisor Government of Nepal Republic of Korea

Peter Moore Regional Programme Director, Asia Pacific Public Sector, Microsoft

Teressa MariaCamba Director, National Computer Centre Govt. of Philippines

Amitabha Pandey Secretary, Inter State Council, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India

Dr. Abdul Rauf Ambali Faculty of Administrative Science and Policy Studies UiTM, Malaysia

San Nag Programme Officer (ICT) The Asia Foundation United States of America

R Chandrashekhar Additional Secretary E-Governance Programme Government of India

Michael Mudd Director of Public Policy Asia-Pacific, CompTIA Hong Kong

Chola Pratapa Singh Chhetri IT Professional, NTNCACAP, Nepal

Ahmad Darian Research Scholar Tehran, Iran

And more...

Dr. Mihyar Hesson Dean of the College of Information Technology Al Ain University of Science and Technology, UAE

Organisers

knowledge for change

Hajah Rugayah Hj. Hashim Associate Professor UiTM Shah Alam Malaysia

Host Organisations

Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications (MEWC) Government of Malaysia

H. Rohani Jahja Widodo President of MASDALI Indonesia

Principal Sponsor

Roberto A. Cabarrubias Community (Barangay) Chairman, Philippines

International Government Partners

MCMC

www.e-ASiA.org/egovasia.asp

Official Security Partner

IN THIS ISSUE INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

COVER FEATURE

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e-Procurement implementation in Selangor local governments

34 Collaborative services dictating e-Government trends

Hajah Rugayah Hj. Hashim

13

MyKad: Technology for whom?

Interview: Foo Jung Wei Director, e-Government, Oracle Corporation, Asia Pacific

Adi Tedjasaputra

IN PRACTICE

38

Semantic based platform for e-Government services Marian Mach, Tomas Sabol

REGULAR FEATURES

NEWS REVIEW

6 16 29 32 42

World News

43 44 45 46

Event Diary Facts and Data Numbers What’s On

India Asia Business Middle East

21-28

Preview on eAsia 2007, Putrajaya, Malaysia

Read all the articles online at www.egovonline.net | January 2007

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Editorial Guidelines egov is a monthly magazine providing a much needed platform to the voices of various stakeholders in the arena of e-Government, apart from being a repository of valuable information and meaningful discussion on issues of e-governance in general, and e-Government in particular – both to the specialist and the generalist.

Contributions to egov magazine should be in the form of articles, case studies, book reviews, event report and news related to e-Government project and initiatives, which are of immense value for practitioners, professionals, corporate and academicians.

We would like the contributors to follow these guidelines, while submitting their material for publication.

• Articles/ Case studies should not

•

•

•

•

exceed 2500 words. For book reviews and event report, the word limit is 800.

An abstract of the article/case study not exceeding 200 words should be submitted along with the article/case study.

All articles/ case studies should provide proper references. Authors should give in writing stating that the work is new and has not been published in any form so far.

Book reviews should include details of the book like the title, name of the author(s), publisher, year of publication, price and number of pages and also send the cover photograph of the book in JPEG/ TIFF (resolution 300 dpi).

Book reviews of books on e-Governance related themes, published from year 2002 onwards, are preferable. In case of website, provide the URL.

•

The manuscripts should be typed in a standard printable font (Times New Roman 12 font size, titles in bold) and submitted either through mail or post.

• Relevant figures of adequate quality (300 dpi) should be submitted in JPEG/ TIFF format.

• A brief bio-data and passport size photograph(s) of the author(s) must be enclosed.

• All contributions are subject to approval by the publisher.

Please send in your papers/articles/ comments to: The Editor G-4, Sector 39 NOIDA (UP) 201 301, India Tel +91 120 2502180-87 Fax +91 120 2500060 Email: info@egovonline.net

Editorial Calendar 2006-07 Solution Focus

Application Focus

October

Interoperability (Open Standards, Open Source Software)

Transport

November

eForms

Police

December

Information and Network Security

Passport Visa

January

Metadata and Data Standards

Income Tax

February

e-Governance Architecture

Courts

March

WiMAX

Posts

Have your daily cup of hot morning tea with hot ee--Government news!

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EDITORIAL Vol. III, Issue 1

January 2007

President Dr. M P Narayanan Editor-in-Chief Ravi Gupta Sr. Assistant Editor Danish A. Khan Sr. Sub Editor Prachi Shirur Research Associate Sanjeev Kumar Shrivastav Marketing Gautam Navin Mobile: +91-9818125257 email: gautam@csdms.in Designed by Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Web Zia Salahuddin Ramakant Sahu Circulation Lipika Dutta Editorial and marketing correspondence eGov G-4 Sector 39 NOIDA 201301, India Tel: +91 120 2502181-87 Fax: +91 120 2500060 Email: info@egovonline.net Printed by Yashi Media Works Pvt Ltd New Delhi, India egov does not neccesarily subscribe to the views expressed in this publication. All views expressed in the magazine are those of the contributors. egov is not responsible or accountable for any loss incurred, directly or indirectly as a result of the information provided. egov is published in collaboration with Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd. (www.elets.in) © Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies, 2006 www.csdms.in

| January 2007

My Wish List for 2007 New Year greetings to all!

Walking into a new more- connected world a lot of issues and problems are opened up, which most current systems are faced with. On a positive note though, it also opens a lot of opportunities and new fields in which the potential of ICTs can be exploited to reach the final goals of economic and social empowerment, which can in turn be achieved through good governance.

Purely from a citizens’ point of view my seven wishes for year 2007 are: • To have some coordination being developed between people repairing roads and water line, so that they know what’s on each others job list and avoid redigging just after the construction finishes, after months of work.

• To be able to register properties on a public database, so that people could be spared from spending their hard earned money on buying fake properties, which are often sold several times over, and also to be able to buy property from the government without having to paying bribe.

• Driving licenses in the country also mean a lot of time loss for the person concerned, more so if the license is lost which again results in a load of files to be looked into, more visits to issuing offices. In this case an e- generated driving license which if lost can be regenerated online by the authorities, would solve a lot of issues!

• To have the police in the country doing things other than maintaining VIP security arrangements and asking money for registering crimes in their areas.

If crime registering can be done online, it may ease the process as well as result in more number of crimes being reported!

• Getting a passport in the country is not possible without going through lot of queues and constant visits to the passport office. It would be great if a passport can be procured in a week’s time using online resources.

• At present buying of high resolution satellite imagery and maps of the country legally from an Indian vendor is not possible and people instead of use free software like Google earth. It would be great if the data from satellites, which are launched with public money, can be made available, even at a cost, in the public domain.

• Even though e-governance is being promoted everywhere, it would be quite a thing if our bureaucracy started using emails for official purposes rather than for sending greetings to their families and talking to their kids staying overseas! Creating a paper-less office to avoid delays in official communication needs to be made a reality!

We all know that all the above stuff is not rocket science. It is all very much doable and there’s perhaps no new technology or scientific research which needs to be done to make all this possible. This is purely a matter of political, bureaucratic will!

Can we all pledge to come together to create the ‘pressure of knowledge’ on our local, state and national governments to actually use our hard earned tax money more effectively for making their and our lives easier!

Ravi Gupta Ravi.Gupta@csdms.in

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Mobile surveillance tool for N. Ireland Police WORLD

IN THE NEWS

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has gone live with abmpegasus Telecoms, a software solution designed to manage requests for accessing and analysing an individual’s communications data All police forces will gain authorisation from a ‘designated person’ prior to accessing the mobile phone, internet and postal data.

Research initiative to adopt open computing standards in Asia Pacific nations A joint research initiative would soon be undertaken by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), IBM and oracle aimed at helping Asia-Pacific Nations to share and create strategies, blueprints and policies for the adoption of open standards and technology services. More countries would be prompted to develop universally compatible applications and networks to make internal and external government services and transactions more automatic, affordable and efficient. According to a UNDP press release, the development of government interoperability frameworks (gifs) would be facilitated by the UNDP Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (UNDP-APDIP). It may be recalled that GIFs have been developed by several countries across the world in order to develop government-wide systems and policies for electronic transactions and data and information exchange. As part of the research initiative, UNDP-APDIP, IBM and Oracle, along with the International Open Source Network (IOSN), would conduct a thorough review of how the governments in asia-pacific and beyond are promoting efficient, government-wide sharing of information and data by focusing on automatic technology services provided by computing networks, instead of individual technologies. The research would particularly examine how existing GIFs are focused on a service-oriented architecture.

e-Procurement system for British Olympic Association In its preparation for the 2012 games, the British Olympic Association (BOA) has selected an eprocurement system that would replace an ineffective paper requisition arrangement. Howard Beeston, BOA’s Finance Director, said That the paper requisition system was unable to meet the organisation’s current needs. This also resulted in human error pertaining to the recording of the transactions. The touchstone group has supplied the eprocurement system. Beeston Hopes that the system would provide greater structure in managing the expenditure with superior information that was previously unavailable.

Companies e-Registry system upgraded in Malta

‘e-Government to remain on agenda for 2007’: Survey

As part of the e-government strategy, the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) recently launched an upgraded internet service for practitioners and citizens to register new companies and file company documents online in a secure and simple manner. The new online service is in compliance with the requirements of the EU (European Union) law necessitating electronic submission of information. The upgraded online system would enable e-filing of documents, e-payments for new company registration and annual returns, and a free company name check. Besides, users would also be able to obtain their own electronic signature and submit electronically signed documents.

The government Technology World 2007 survey result has indicated that egovernment would continue to remain on agenda for 2007. The findings come after Terrapinn interviewed some 200 CIO/Director level employees of government agencies on their priorities and key drivers for ICT programmes. The importance of e-government in their organisations has been listed by 32%, who accord it as a high priority. e-government was not a priority at all for 14%; egovernment solutions were being investigated by 41%; while the remaining 13% said that they were piloting an e-government programme. According to the survey, IT system integration – maintaining security and reliability, remains number one challenge.

Regarding vendor relationships, 29% of agencies said that they were looking to advance interagency collaboration with Microsoft, 18% with IBM, 14% with HP and 12% with Sun.

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Campaigners urge Internet charges reduction in Kenya Marcel Werner, the first Vice-Chairman of the Kenya ICT Federation, and Dr Kevit Desai, Centurion System’s Director of Engineering, have urged the subsidizing of internet srvices in Kenya to enable people extensively use ICT to Power development in rural and urban areas. On the eve of the completion of their 1-year drive for internet use termed ‘Power up with ict’, the two campaigners expressed happiness at the increase of internet users in the country, and said that Kenya is now second to South Africa in the use of internet in Sub-Saharan Africa. “In Malaysia and Thailand, the services are five times cheaper than in Kenya. In fact, the services should be free in the education and health sectors.

ICT service users had increased from 300,000 in 2004 to one million,” Werner and Desai said. The campaign targeted agriculture, tourism, healthcare, education and urban development.

Taiwan, St. Kitts/ Nevis to cooperate in ICT, e-Government Sen. Nigel Carty, St. Kitts/nevis minister of State for Information and Technology, and James C.F. Huang, Taiwan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, recently signed a letter of intent on cooperation in ICT. According to the agreement, Taiwan has resolved to help St. Kitts/Nevis in the field of ICT and promote the level of digitisation.

Speaking on the occasion, Carty said that St. Kitts/Nevis has deemed egovernment as one of its significant national policies on development and recognises the importance of bridging the digital Divide and establishing an e-society as a means of improving the country’s sustainable development.

‘IT development in Turkey lopsided’: OECD Report

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (Oecd) Report recently stated that the development of Information Technology in Turkey is lopsided. According to the Report, the internet access in the country continues to be around 14% as compared to 47% in the European | January 2007

Union. “The internet access rate is higher at 19% in urban areas, while in rural areas it still remains at 6%. The internet is being used by 19% men as opposed to only 9% of women,” the Report pointed out. The Report advocated the need for stronger efforts for eliminating the gap. The

government has also been advised to increase the number of internet cafés for providing education and guidance for citizens. So far, Turkey has focused more on providing better and faster internet services to the Business World than for home users.

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CoverFEATURE

e-Procurement implementation in Selangor local governments Hajah Rugayah Hj. Hashim

M

alaysia is witnessing a shift from an industrial-based economy to an informationbased economy in which information is intrinsic to organisational functioning.

Driven by the need to acquire, manipulate and distribute information, the last decade have seen a massive growth in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) investments by both public and private institutions. Often described as a characteristic of the information revolution, this increasing rate of investment in technology has also been fueled by both the decreasing costs and increasing capabilities of technological hardware and software. Given all of these events, there is little doubt that the Malaysian society has become increasingly dependent on ICT. Furthermore, in recent years, the vital development of the Internet offers increasing opportunity for e-Commerce (electronic commerce). E-commerce has attracted much attention from businesses, not only to get connection with others and make a profit from their product/ service, but also to reduce the costs of internal and external operational procedures including purchasing or procurement. Procurement is a very critical task because it is a matter not only for making a profit, but also for staying in business in a highly competitive environment. In the government sector, procurement is sometimes the source of corruption, scandal and abuse of public resources. Besides inadequately qualified 8

e-Procurement is still considered to be a new and volatile area in the local governments in Malaysia. The 21 local governments in Malaysia’s Selangor are not yet ready for e-Procurement services as per the study. Realistically, the challenges and difficulties in effecting change at the local government level, lack of funding, complex and expensive initiatives, and rigid government bureaucracy are the issues confronting them personnel, “transparency” of the procurement environment becomes another source of problems in the procurement procedure.

The Malaysian scene for eProcurement is very slow to pick up even though it is one of the flagships of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC). Since Selangor is the leading state in Malaysia and in view of its economic development, it should play a major role in making Malaysia’s Vision 2020 a reality. Also, due to Selangor’s economic success, as well as its strategic location in the center of West Malaysia, Selangor has become the regional hub for all things cyber. Of the 14 states in Malaysia, Selangor is the only state that has achieved the status of a developed state as of 29th August 2005 through their Vision 2005.

Significance of research In order to realise an electronically driven government an in-depth understanding of the specific issues related to ICT

implementation leading to eProcurement implementation is essential for the establishment of appropriate principals and effective approaches with regard to the management of information and communication systems in an organisation. In fact, in the implementation of e-Government initiative subsequently leading to eProcurement initiative, many issues and challenges to both initiatives are interrelated such as those pertaining to information security, establishment of a comprehensive, widespread and affordable telecommunications infrastructure as well as adequate education and training which encompass not only government employees but the masses as well. Each individual issue is important in its own context as well as producing multiple impacts, which affect the organisation and implementation of ICTs within it. Subsequently, effective management of ICT and later, eProcurement across the board can only www.egovonline.net |

local government. For this study, the concept of local government will actually consist of the twelve municipalities or local agencies and nine land/district offices (LDO) within the state of Selangor.

Literature review

take place when a more comprehensive understanding of the myriad of issues is achieved.

In the area of information and communication technology, a good portion of the research conducted prior to this study tended to focus primarily on private sector systems and was based on what Ward (1995) termed “supplyside� issues, or those issues related to how ICT based systems can be made to work effectively, economically, and in the end deliver the expected benefits. In this case the issues were those, which surround the cost to benefit ratios of specific ICTs, and were usually earmarked for singular applications or projects. While these issues are certainly very important, they are not the be-all and end-all of ICT implementation leading towards e-Procurement systems. This study will identify and address the issues that the local government or local councils’ ICT officers or managers face when attempting to implement and later adopt e-Procurement in their organisations.

The focus of this study is on the ICT planning and e-Procurement implementation processes as a whole and not on one specific part, since it is only through a complete review of the spectrum of issues that greater success can be achieved in this relatively new and volatile environment, especially for the Selangor local government. | January 2007

Procurement is a very critical task because it is a matter not only for making a profit, but also for staying in business in a highly competitive environment. In the government sector, procurement is sometimes the source of corruption, scandal and abuse of public resources Research objectives The objectives of this research were to identify and examine the issues or problems, which are specific to the Selangor local government with regard to e-Procurement implementation in their municipality as well as to distinguish a comprehensive view of the overriding barriers and/or facilitators associated with the information and communication technology (ICT) planning, ICT implementation and e-Procurement development, deployment and implementation processes in the Selangor

In the last 20 years, Malaysia has experienced a remarkable growth in the economy. The GNP per capita has risen from US$1,710 in 1981 to US$4,284 in 1997.

One consequence of this rapid growth of the Malaysian economy is that, the rise in the level of affluence of the local population has created increasing demands for public goods and services.

People not only want to consume what is being provided to them but they also care for the quality of the public goods and services. At the local level, the local government, as one of the levels of government, plays a crucial role in providing public goods and services that are specific to the localities. However, the performance of local governments has been subjected to various criticisms based on the increasing number of complaints and dissatisfaction from the public regarding provision of public goods and the poor services rendered to the locals, suggesting the inefficiency of our local governments. This calls for the local government to be more responsive in meeting local needs and being able to deliver their functions effectively. As the public at large is concerned about quality services and the greater role expected from local governments, the need to evaluate the performance of local governments is essential. The implementation of e-Procurement by the local government is an important issue to be addressed. This paper investigates the issues by analysing whether the Selangor local governments are ready to provide online procurement services.

The local governments in Malaysia are classified into three groups: city council for city centers, municipality for large towns and land/district offices for small sub-urban areas. As of 1999, there are a total of 99 local governments in Peninsular Malaysia comprising of four city councils, 19 municipal councils and 76 land/district offices. They are formed and regulated by the respective state legislation and subordinate to the 9

respective state governments. The local government act of 1976 provides local authorities in Malaysia with a very comprehensive set of functions and responsibilities. The major function of the local governments is to provide public goods and services that are specific to the localities. Local public services that are undertaken by them on behalf of the respective state governments include both mandatory and discretionary functions. The mandatory functions include all critical functions such as refuse collection, maintenance of minor drainage, sewerage treatment, road maintenance, street lighting and activities pertaining to public health. Discretionary functions include all development function such as providing amenities, recreational parks, housing and commercial activities, markets, sports facilities and community centers. The sources of revenue for local governments mainly come from state specific grants that include road maintenance grant, economic development grant, and property tax.

employed. The study utilised both the primary and secondary data, that is, the research used a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. As very little is known about the implementation of e-Procurement in the local governments of Selangor, the initial data gathering needed to be more qualitative in order to gain a breadth of view on the subject.

Stangor (2004), Neuman (2003) and Roberts (2004) pointed out the value of using qualitative techniques where

The Malaysian scene for e-Procurement is very slow to pick up even though it is one of the flagships of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC). Since Selangor is the leading state in Malaysia and in view of its economic development, it should play a major role in making Malaysia’s Vision 2020 a reality This study is the first attempt to undertake the systematic study of e-Procurement implementation in a selected local government of Malaysia.

The rest of the paper provides a brief review of the literature on e-Procurement implementation and the study of local government readiness for e-Procurement followed by the methodology and finally the findings and conclusion.

Methodology All the 21 or 100% of the local governments in Selangor were studied comprising of the city councils, municipalities and the land/district offices; thus, no sampling technique is 10

research issues are not clear-cut and where respondents replies are likely to be complex, discursive, and grounded in the culture of the organisation.

Furthermore, since the population of the Selangor local governments is not large, this study employs the local governments as the unit of analysis.

Data Collection: Data collection was divided into two phases. Phase 1 – Faceto-face interviews were conducted using structured survey questions. The local governments were chosen on the basis of easy access and their geographical closeness to Shah Alam and Klang. The seven local governments were Petaling Land/District Office, Petaling Jaya

Municipal Council (MPPJ), Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ), Shah Alam City Council (MBSA), Ampang Jaya Municipal Council (MPAJ), Klang Municipal Council (MPK) and the Kuala Selangor Land/ District Office. These seven municipalities comprised 33.3% of the overall population. Only the department head of the respective ICT Department of each municipality was interviewed.

Phase 2 – A questionnaire was then developed based on the responses received. These questions were structured on a Likert scale of 1 (Extremely Ineffective) to 7 (Extremely Effective). At the request of the respondents during the interview sessions, the questionnaire was translated to Bahasa Melayu as the respondents are more comfortable with this language. The questionnaires were sent to all 21 (100%) local governments of Selangor by snail mail followed by e-mail upon request. From the 21 questionnaires sent out to the 21 local governments, only seven or 33.3% were returned after repeated phone calls and e-mail. From these seven responses, only one was from the land/district office while the remaining six are from the local councils or municipalities.

Data Analysis: Following the procedures described in the data gathering processes, the interview sessions were audio-taped and notes taken by the researcher. The interviews were later transcribed and content analysis was performed on the notes to identify the main themes relative to the research questions. Consequently, a questionnaire was drawn up to quantify the responses with questions structured on a (Likert) scale of 1 (Extremely www.egovonline.net |

The findings from this study indicate a paradox in the midst of policies imposed by the State and Federal Governments plus those hyped up by the mass media.

The responses made by the various local governments stem more from the perspective of the respective individuals surveyed which are actually reality-checks than from upper management.

Ineffective) to 7 (Extremely Effective). The software used to analyse the descriptive statistics was the Statistical Package for Social Science or SPSS Version 12.0.1 for Windows.

Research findings In a nutshell, the findings of this study on e-Procurement implementation issues in the Selangor local government resonate with the literature on like issues. The findings from this study indicate a paradox in the midst of policies imposed by the State and Federal Governments plus those hyped up by the mass media.

The responses made by the various local governments stem more from the perspective of the respective individuals surveyed which are actually realitychecks than from upper management.

The findings based on the research questions are addressed thus.

The first research question was about the most problematic issues facing the Selangor local government executives with regard to ICT planning process.

According to the respondents, the most problematic issues facing the Selangor local government executives with regard to ICT planning process is the Human Resource issue and the drawing up of contracts issue. From the interview transcriptions, almost all of the ICT officers are employed on a contractual basis. This is in itself a de-motivating factor as most of them have been working for their respective local authority for more | January 2007

than three years. Furthermore, the organisational structure of their local authority shows that they are the department heads for the ICT department or unit. Even though most of them are diploma holders, still the fact remains that as department heads they should be employed as a permanent staff as their subordinates are already employed permanently. This abnormality is in stark contrast particularly in the nine land/ district officers of the Selangor state.

Grievances on this matter have been brought up to the top management at every opportunity but bureaucracy hinders the process of recruitment, compensation and benefits at the local government organisations. Therefore, in order to have an effective ICT planning process, the local governments must deal with these issues immediately.

Regarding the most problematic issue of ICT implementation facing the

Selangor local government executives is again the human resource issue, drawing up of contracts and adequate staffing. Yet again, the Klang land/district office which represents the rest of the eight land/ district offices in Selangor pointed out that Human Resource management is ineffective because of the ripple effect on the contract employment of these ICT executives. Inadequate staffing for ICTskilled employees is another issue that the state government of Selangor should look into as only one ICT officer heads the ICT department at their municipality, thus these ICT officers are considered a “Jack or Jill of all trades�. In particular, the ICT officers at the land/district officers are in charge of everything ICT such as being network administrators, systems analyst, programmer, webmaster, ICT trainer, etc. Therefore, in order to have a successful implementation of ICT at the local

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government organizations, these issues must also be tackled as soon as possible.

The barriers of e-Procurement implementation at the Selangor local governments, as ranked by the respondents includes difficulty in adjusting to change, lack of funding, complex and expensive initiatives, and rigid government bureaucracy.

However, in reply to the question whether the local governments of Selangor (Municipalities and, Land and District Offices) are ready for eProcurement adoption, the respondents said that the local governments are not ready for e-Procurement adoption.

In fact, all of the issues such as political, social, economic, technological and public service must be taken care of immediately as they are the barriers of eProcurement adoption particularly the human resource and the drawing up of contracts issues, which are placed under the “Social” variable, plus the bureaucratic red-tape on recruitment which is a “Public Service” variable. Once these issues are resolved, the adoption of e-Procurement at the local government level of Selangor would be a smooth process.

in research. It has been anticipated that using the local government as the unit of analysis would cause some problems in getting back a complete response but the need to use them as the scope is important in today’s Information Era. It took almost a year to get back a semblance of a sufficient number of completed questionnaires to successfully run the analysis.

The results indicate that the city and municipal councils would have better preparations to introduce e-Procurement compared to the other local councils particularly the land/district offices.

This might be due to the size of the local government

Limitations and assumptions of research The choice of Selangor from the rest of the 13 states in Malaysia is due to her strategic location of being sandwiched between Putrajaya and Cyberjaya. Other criteria for choosing Selangor are extensive infrastructure, high population, successful economy, etc. The minimum response rate of 33.3% or 7 out of 21 is the borderline acceptance for reliability 12

Conclusion and recommendation In this paper, the e-Procurement implementation issues of local governments in the state of Selangor were analysed relative to ICT planning and ICT implementation. There are several conclusions that can be derived from this study. Firstly, the findings suggest that most of the local

governments in Selangor are not ready for e-Procurement implementation or to provide procurement/tendering services online. The underlying objective of this research is to enable online Federal Government procurement. When fully implemented it will transform the current procurement procedures by making it a faster and cheaper process, which will then be handed down to state governments and the local governments throughout Malaysia. Electronic procurement enables the Government to become a smart buyer procuring quality goods and services at reasonable prices.

Suppliers in turn will reap benefits through more expeditious and error-free payments. From literature, the initial phase of the project is limited to the procurement of Central Contract goods and services involving the automation of the procurement process and establishing connectivity between buyers and suppliers. The project will then be extended to other procurement processes, namely direct purchases, quotations and tenders. Two agencies have been identified to implement this project. They are the Administration Division and the Government Procurement Division of the Ministry of Finance and the Management Services Division of MAMPU. Pilot implementation will begin in early 1998 before full rollout to all Government agencies in subsequent phases.

Secondly, the variables that influence the local government’s implementation issue the most are the type of local government, level of technology usage, political issues and social issues. Lastly, the results indicate that the city and municipal councils would have better preparations to introduce e-Procurement compared to the other local councils particularly the land/district offices. This might be due to the size of the local government, the scale of operations, and autonomy of the city and municipal councils.

About the author Prof. Hajah Rugayah Hj. Hashim [guy73106@yahoo.com] is Associate Professor, Faculty of Administrative Science and Policy Studies, UiTM Shah Alam, Malaysia.

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CoverFEATURE

Technology for whom?

Adi Tedjasaputra

M

yKad or Government Multipurpose Card (GMPC) is a multi-purpose card envisioned by the Malaysian government to enable Malaysians accessing public and private services. The possible data stored in MyKad could include personal identification, driving records, passport information, medical data and monetary transaction. The maximum data storage is currently limited to its 64K memory capacity due to the limitation of the smart card technology being used.

The recent concern regarding the use of MyKad was amply indicated during the media coverage for the CardEx Asia 2006 Conference in Kuala Lumpur, published in Bernama, is an honest expression of frustration.

The Bernama article quoted Jafizwaty Ishahak, Program Manager, Frost & Sullivan, Malaysia as saying: “In terms of adoption, we are fast but when we see the end-users, there is still a lack of awareness and knowledge in terms of full usage of the smart cards.” Blaming the end-users’ lack of awareness and knowledge, she also said that only 10% of MyKad holders use the other applications that come with the identity card. As such, there is a need for more education regarding the use of smart cards and in terms of their application so that more people would be appreciative and receptive towards the technology.

MyKad or Government Multipurpose Card is a multi-purpose card envisioned by the Malaysian government to enable Malaysians access

Technology appreciation and acceptance Technology appreciation and acceptance could naturally be part of a new product and service adoption. Business cases, however, show that technology appreciation and acceptance are often insignificant for the success of product and service usage.

Take Google as an example. When Google’s search service was initially launched, only a fraction of people in the world could appreciate its PageRank technology.

After the search service almost constantly provided its users with relevant and useful search results, more people started to use its search service with increasing frequency. Google has now become so popular that MerriamWebster dictionary recently added the definition of the word “Google”.

Despite Google’s popularity, there are still many people who still do not know or care about the PageRank technology behind the search service, not even within the Search Engine Community.

Learning from business cases such as Google, it is noticeable that the success of product and service usage is often the result of usability, which correlates strongly with relevancy and usefulness, not technology appreciation and acceptance.

public and private services. However, there is still a lack of awareness and

Education or user research?

knowledge regarding the full usage of smart cards

Five years have passed since MyKad was officially launched in 2001. It is, however,

| January 2007

13

Five years have passed since MyKad was officially launched in 2001. It is, however, still difficult to draw any conclusive analysis to improve the usage of MyKad. The claim that only 10% of MyKad holders use the other applications that come with

still difficult to draw any conclusive analysis to improve the usage of MyKad. The claim that only 10% of MyKad holders use the other applications that come with the identity card should actually become a wake-up call for the MyKad stakeholders, including the Government of Malaysia.

While education could help in the success of new product and service usage, it is difficult to agree that the lack of education could be the main deterrence for technology appreciation and acceptance, particularly in the case of MyKad. The premise that education could result in technology appreciation and acceptance, and eventually successful usage by end-users, is basically unfounded.

In the MyKad case, User Research is actually more suitable than education or training. Some insights from MyKad stakeholders, including MyKad users, could be essential to take some decisions needed to improve the usage of MyKad. Malaysians could benefit from a usable MyKad, not a technologycentred one.

About the author

the identity card should actually become a wake-

Adi Tedjasaputra is the Founder of RFID Asia, Indonesia. http://www.rfidAsia.org

up call for the MyKad stakeholders, including the

adi.tedjasaputra@rfidAsia.org

Government of Malaysia

New ID cards for foreigners in Malaysia As part of its anti-terrorism effort, Malaysia has decided to introduce a new biometric documentation system for foreigners and illegal immigrants. The new ID cards with security features would be allotted by the Malaysian Immigration Department. In the first stage some 40,000 foreign students would be given the ID cards, followed by 1.8 million foreign workers. According to Malaysia’s Home Minister Mohamed Radzi Sheikh Ahmad, the existing card for foreign workers, maids, students, trade officers, Malaysia My Second Home owners and workers for outsourcing companies would be replaced. The new ID card would have high physical security features apart from storing the holder’s biometrics, photo and information in its chip.

“There are no borders anymore. Foreigners caught committing crimes will have their information and fingerprints stored in a database to make sure they do not try to enter again under different names after they are deported,” Ahmad said.

14

www.egovonline.net |

IN THE NEWS

LESA, consumers finding e-Suvidha inconvenient e-Suvidha is now proving inconvenient for the Lucknow Electricity Supply Administration (LESA) and its consumers. There has been a sharp fall in the daily revenue collection of LESA at e-Suvidha’s online billing centres due to frequent malfunction in the e-Suvidha server. This is also posing problems for consumers, who have to queue up braving long hours at the online billing centres, and sometimes even returning without paying their bills because of the computer losing its connectivity or logging out or hitting by other problems. Currently, there are more than two dozen online billing centres in Lucknow.

According to A. K. Singh, LESA chief engineer, more than 10% of the total bills that consumers come to deposit require revision for various reasons, which however, cannot be revised due to server problem.

RIVs in AP in for a trouble Andhra Pradesh’s ambitious rural e-governance Rajiv Internet Village (RIV) is facing trouble. Some 1,500 RIVs were set up in the State two years ago. However, only 600 of them are functional currently. The RIVs are finding it difficult to sustain or have closed shops. In Krishna district, 24 out of the 94 RIVs have been closed down. The total number of transactions per month by the remaining 70 RIVs in the district is merely 30,000, whereas the urban e-Seva transactions are 3.30 lakh. In other districts the situation is similar. It may be noted that financial misappropriation in the RIVs are increasing, with five such cases being reported in West Godavari and Krishna districts.

Envisaged as a chain of computerised integrated citizen service centres, the RIVs are aimed at providing electronically deliverable services to the rural areas.

Currently, the operations of RIV are performed offline, while the urban e-Seva operations are online and can be monitored on real time basis. The RIVs are being managed by unemployed rural youths.

Cyberabad police in a tizzy over e-Challans A piquant situation has arisen for the Cyberabad (Hyderabad) police following the imple-mentation of eChallan system after its introduction in October this year. The police has so far issued 14,150 challans, of which some 3,000 offenders have paid the fine while over 11,000 offenders have still not paid the fine amounts despite email reminders of their ‘offence’ by the police. The offenders have not responded to the emails even as the police announced that the offenders failing to pay the fines would be dragged to court.

The offenders are given 15 days time for paying the fine either at eSeva counters or at the compounding booth in the 16

office of the Hyderabad police commissioner. In the event of non-reply to emails or nonpayment of fines, the Cyberabad police is now finding itself helpless in filing chargesheets against 11,000 offenders and take them to court due to shortage of manpower. However, the police has formulated a model chargesheet and plans to prosecute some offenders on a “trial basis”, and assess as to how tedious process it would appear. It may be noted that the e-Challan system of the Cyberabad police is connected to the central database of the transport department to verify the details of the offenders. www.egovonline.net |

Bhoomi SMS land alerts in Karnataka Karnataka’s popular e-Government project Bhoomi has developed a land alert system that would send SMS alerts to the landowners in the State whenever a transaction on their land is done. This would particularly help landowners residing in places other than where their property is situated, and detect frequent dubious transactions via impersonation. The tip-offs about mutation are expected to prove to be a boon to the people.

According to Karnataka e-Governance Secretary Rajiv Chawla, the users availing SMS alerts facilities would have to get their mobile numbers registered in the Bhoomi kiosk and pay fees. However, the department is considering another form of informing the users who do not possess mobile phones. The SMS alert could also be availed by the owner for a legal transaction. Up till now some 4.9 crore farmers have availed of services provided by Bhoomi by obtaining Record of Right, tenancy and crop certificate by paying a fee of Rs. 15 per record.

Maharashtra to replicate KDMC website

India planning a national Land Information System The Government of India is planning to set up a national Land Information System (LIS) soon in order to set the age-old land records in the country right. Under the LIS, land records would be kept in electronic form, and is aimed at helping both the administration and landowners through e-Governance. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, who recently chaired the Inter-State Council meeting, said, “It is a stupendous task to set the age-old land records in the country right as land is a state subject. There is a need to evolve a consensus among all stakeholders.”

The Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) website and its comprehensive e-Governance system has impressed the Maharashtra Government so much so that it has announced that the model would be replicated in all urban local bodies across the State. Among the various software modules to be replicated includes a citizen facilitation centre and an interactive website, a host of services like online property tax assessment, water payments, birth and death certificates, various licences including food and trade etc. Besides this, the town planning department’s work is also available for viewing online. The KDMC would also add a Geographical Information System and a Human resource Management System among the final modules. The State Government said that the e-Government system would also be applied to municipalities not having e-Governance systems at present. | January 2007

According to Amitabha Pande, Secretary of Inter-State Council, the National Atlas Thematic Mapping Organisation (NATMO), Department of science and Technology, mooted the idea of building a national LIS portal, following which a committee headed by a Joint Secretary has been constituted to prepare draft policy document. “Both the Central and State governments are making extensive efforts to improve land administration in the country.

Development of an appropriate technologybased LIS would go a long way in effectively administrating land and also achieving millennium development goals for India by 2020,” Pande said.

17

RegionFOCUS

Striving towards e-Governance Th Pameshwor Singh | Lalhma Chhuani

P

erched on the high hills of northeastern India, Mizoram is a storehouse of natural beauty with its picturesque landscape, hilly terrains, meandering streams and deep gorges, as well as rich wealth of flora and fauna.

Flanked by Bangladesh on the west and Myanmar on the east and south, Mizoram occupies an important strategic position having a long international boundary of 722 kms. The State has been divided into eight districts, 23 rural development blocks, 24 sub-divisions and 3 autonomous district councils. Total number of villages as per 2001 census is 817 and there are 40 assembly constituencies. Every village has its own administrative set-up called village council. All developments works in the village are done through village council.

Recognising IT as the fastest and the most advanced vehicle of change for allround progress and development of the State, Mizoram advocates widespread proliferation of IT in the state and supports promotion of IT in the fields of e-Governance, empowerment of people, education, industry, health, rural development, agriculture, tourism and IT enabled services.

With a vision to improve the quality of life of every citizen of Mizoram and transforming Mizoram into a knowledge based State, the Government of Mizoram and NIC Mizoram are working together for an effective e-Government in the State with a well-defined action plan. The strategy and approach plan includes 18

adopting enterprise approach (identify, fund and implement cross-departmental, cross-tier e-Government interoperable initiatives); developing generic core applications which can be built once, but used many times; set ambitious electronic service delivery targets; adopting an intention based approach; change management, skill upgradation, high reliability of ICT components etc.; and, adopting Open Source System.

e-Government initiatives undertaken NIC (National Informatics Centre) along with the Government of Mizoram has taken up many initiatives in facilitating and promoting e-Government in various sectors such as Transport, Land Record, Public Health Engineering, and Accounts and Treasuries etc.

Inner Line Permit: The inner line permit has been introduced in Mizoram so as to ward off unsolicited, unauthorised person(s) from entering the State as it is declared that the lifestyle, habitat, customs and cultures has to be preserved by the Government of India. For each and every non-Mizo residents who wish to enter Mizoram must obtain this permit from the respective liaison officers or from the Government of Mizoram.

Accordingly, NIC-Mizoram along with the active participation of the State Government introduced a computerised system, which helps in the various functionalities such as monitoring of all visitors, capturing of permit holder’s photos, issue of permit, renewal of permit, record of revenue earned, classification of permit, maintenance of

The State of Mizoram has recognised that IT is the fastest and most advanced vehicle of change for allround progress and development. Mizoram is now advocating widespread proliferation of IT in the State and supporting its promotion in the fields of e-Governance, empowerment of people, education, industry, health, rural development, agriculture, tourism and IT enabled services www.egovonline.net |

proper records, record of sponsors, area and trade for which the permit is issued, and proper backup facility. The software is based on 2-tier client server architecture on windows platform. The software uses VB 6.0 as front end and MS SQL 2000 server as the back end. Crystal report 8.5 is used as a report mechanism.

Transport computerisation: ‘Sarathi’ and ‘Vahan’ provide a complete solution for the District Transport Office computerisation including Registration, Licensing, Permit and Enforcement, Tax and Fee collection etc. In 2004, NICMizoram initiated the process, and by April 2006 it has implemented the system in all DTOs. Various training programmes have been organised by NIC-Mizoram on ‘Vahan’ and ‘Sarathi’ for the officials of the Transport department to acquaint them with the different modules of the software. A website http://transmizo.nic.in has been designed and hosted, which gives the detailed information about the transport department and provides the necessary registration and tax details of the vehicle in an online mode. Besides, a Vehicle Statistics Information Systems has also been developed that helps in collection of various reports required annually by State Transport Authority.

Community Information Centres: The Community Information Centre (CIC) project was launched in the northeastern region in the year 2000. In Mizoram, 26 CICs have been established till now. All are equipped with computers, VSAT, TV, web cameras, printers, UPS etc. The CICs provide services to the people in the far-flung and remote areas of the State. The services include email, web browsing and document printing; imparting IT training to the villagers, school students, IGNOU and DOECC courses etc.; IT support to district and block administration for office automation; G2C services such as support for BPL survey, village council elections, publication of tenders, GO, Notifications etc.; providing entertainment to the local people through telecast of TV programmes; and, information services such as online newspaper reading, railway reservation enquiry, airline enquiry, hospital enquiry etc.

AGMARKNET: The AGMARKNET (Agricultural Marketing Information | January 2007

System network) project utilises ICT facilities for the betterment of the agriculture sector. It seeks to provide the farmers with prompt and reliable market information thereby improving their decision making capability and strengthening their bargaining power.

NIC-Mizoram has already provided training to a number of marketing personnel and state-level officers on the AGMARKNET phase IV market software. Computer hardware and software has been provided to 10 Agriculture-Produce market committees of the State, which are now connected to

using VB 6.0 as a front end and MS SQL server 2000 as a back end through client – server 2 tier architecture. Crystal report version 9 is used as a reporting tool.

PHE Account Monitoring System: This is a web-based application. The system is running at NIC-Mizoram State Centre and the divisional offices of PHE are updating it from CIC centre. This system monitors the accounting of various divisional level of PHED. PHE CSS Monitoring System: This system is a web-based application. It is developed for the monitoring of works done by the dept at divisional level. The

the nationwide agriculture information network.

PHE Water Billing computerisation: NIC-Mizoram and Public Health Engineering (PHE) department of Mizoram worked out a solution for computerisation of PHE water billing system. The software developed on this system encompasses various functionalities such as bill generated and received every month; amount received for the year, month, and a day; repayment of successive unpaid bills; tracking of paid and unpaid bills; rechecking every bills issued; maintenance of every bill; proper backup facility; and, cross checking of every data captured. The software is developed

system is now hosted in NIC-Mizoram State Centre and is updated by the PHE official from divisional level from CIC centre.

GPF Monitoring System: NICMizoram developed a GPF monitoring system to benefit more than 36,000 GPF subscribers of the State. The system implemented at Directorate of Accounts and Treasury, Aizawl, has been developed with SQL at the backend and Visual Basic as front end. The software has features to generate various reports for the department such as broad sheets, annual ledger, annual GPF statement, and is used to maintain the GPF accounts upto-date, which includes monthly subscription, advances, refunds, 19

withdrawals, interest calculations and final payments etc.

Land Records computerisation: NICMizoram developed a data management and land allotment system for the Government of Mizoram. The Unix based system is successfully running at the Land Revenue and Settlement department and more than 2.21 lakh records of different districts have already been entered. The system allows data entry of land allotment and mutation. However, with the advancement of GIS technology the need has now been felt to digitise the existing cadastral maps and correlate them with the attribute data already available in the digital format. The State Government in consultation with NIC is in the process of implementing a new system where all the cadastral maps would be digitised and the RoR along with map issued to the farmers/land owner by means of information kiosks. The mutations would also be carried out from the digitised cadastral maps. This will usher in a new era of e-Governance in the State since more than 70% of the Mizo population is one way or other are connected to agriculture and land.

Common Integrated Citizen Application: The Deputy Collector of Aizawl district has been issuing various important citizens certificate such as birth, death, residential, SC/ST and income respectively. The number of applicants for these certificates is around 400-500 per day. The software is developed using VB 6.0 as a front end and MS SQL server 2000 as a back end through client – server 2 tier architecture. Crystal report version 9 is used as a reporting tool.

Infrastructure Robust hardware, software and network infrastructure is a must for extending IT enabled services to the government and the people. Over the years, NIC has already established the basic infrastructure and is continuously upgrading and augmenting it to roll out more citizen-centric applications.

Mizoram already has a state-of-art NIC State Centre, 3 District Centres, 26 Community Information Centres, an eGovernance Centre at Aizawl and a State Secretariat LAN connected through RF extending their services to the people of Mizoram. A number of projects are in the

pipeline to enhance these centres and equip them with the latest technology.

Video Conferencing: Mizoram is one of the leading states with the state-of-art video conferencing equipments established in all the 8 districts including the CM Secretariat. The VC facility has resulted in better monitoring of government programmes and schemes with significant savings in cost, time and manpower effort.

Sub Division Network: Site preparation is under progress at all the 27 selected sub divisions and autonomous district councils for the sub division network. Twenty-six sites have already been completed and the network will be commissioned soon which will provide a boost to the e-Governance initiatives of the state.

State Data Centre: A data centre consisting of Secured Network Infrastructure and Storage Area Network (SAN) is being set up in the Civil Secretariat by NIC. Under the State Data Centre, it is envisaged to have a data repository at state level. The data centre will have high-end Application, Database, Mail and Web servers.

About the authors Th Pameshwor Singh is State Informatics Officer, National Informatics Centre (NIC), Mizoram. tpsingh@nic.in

20

Lalhma Chhuani is System Analyst, National Informatics Centre (NIC), Mizoram. chhuani@nic.in

www.egovonline.net |

O pportunities for

D igital A sia 6-8 February, 2007 Putrajaya International Convention Centre, Malaysia

Organisers

knowledge for change

Host Organisations

Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications (MEWC) Government of Malaysia

Institutional Partners

Principal Sponsor

International Government Partners

MCMC

Knowledge Partners

Tourism Partners

Media Partners ov

L CATION

University of Malya

INTAN

Supporting Partners

www.e-ASiA.org

Asia's largest conference on ICT4D eASiA 2007 through its five seminal conferences, will focus on five emerging application domains of ICT for Development - eGovernment, ICT in Education, ICT and Rural Development, ICT enabled Health Services and Mobile Application and Services for Development

What?

•

Meeting point to foster cooperation in ICT for Development in Asia

•

Platform for consultative dialoguing, strategic planning and business partnering

•

Comprehensive programme with keynotes from professionals, technical sessions and an exhibition

•

Participation of high level speakers and experts on ICT from Asia and beyond

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Forum to address the issues of digital divide and explore opportunities for Digital Asia

Who? •

Ministry of Energy, Water and Communication, Government of Malaysia

•

Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, Malaysia

•

Microsoft Corporation

•

Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Switzerland

•

The Commission in Information and Communications Technology, Philippines

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The National Computer Center (NCC), Philippines

•

Ministry of Information and Communication, Government of Korea

•

The National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore

•

Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Malaysia

•

International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada

•

... And many more

Why? •

Meet key decision makers, experts, leaders and stakeholders in ICT arena at one platform

•

Meet professional service providers, IT vendors, Telecom vendors, Satellite providers, Consulting firms, Government agencies and National-International development organisations in the domain of ICT

•

Opportunity for potential business partners from Asia and beyond to meet and exchange ideas and needs

•

Opportunities for cooperation in the field of ICT for development, education, governance and health among Asian countries

www.e-ASiA.org

6 - 8 February, 2007 Putrajaya International Convention Centre, Malaysia

The Venue The Putrajaya International Convention Centre or better known as PICC among the Putrajaya residents, is located on top of Taman Puncak Selatan in Precinct 5.

PICC takes its shape from the eye of the pending perak (a silver Malay royal belt buckle) with the main halls set in the eye of the pending perak.

Putrajaya International Convention Centre Dataran Gemilang, Precinct 5 Federal Government Administrative Centre 62000 Putrajaya, Malaysia Tel: +6-03-8887 6000 Fax: +6-03-8887 6499 E-mail: enquiry@pcc.gov.my Web: www.pcc.gov.my

Transportation and Accommodation Transportation

By Road: Putrajaya is 25 kms from Kuala Lumpur and 15 minutes drive from KLIA and F1 circuit in Sepang. It is the most accessible city in Malaysia. You can reach Putrajaya using expressways, urban highways and rail.

Prepaid Taxi: Delegates may take prepaid taxis from Airport to Putrajaya and/or from Kuala Lumpur to Putrajaya. Putrajaya International Convention Centre is approximately 30 min from KLIA and approximately 40 minutes from Kuala Lumpur city.

Shuttle Service by organisers during the conference period: The organisers will provide a shuttle service for delegates from the Putrajaya Station to Conference Venue and Conference Hospitality Partner Hotels in Putrajaya (and back) on hourly basis.

By Train: A high-speed train service either from Kuala Lumpur International Airport or KL Central (city), Kuala Lumpur, is the fastest way to reach Putrajaya.

Accommodation Organisers are pleased to announce Marriott Putrajaya as the Conference Partner Hotel for eASiA 2007. The hotel will offer the delegates room accommodation at a subsidised rate. Please visit the link www.e-asia.org/2007/accommodation.asp for more details and to book your room.

eASiA's Unique Value Proposition •

High level speakers and experts from Asia and beyond

•

Right technology solutions and partners

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Opportunity to forge strategic partnerships with sellers and buyers

•

Focussed session and target audience

•

Face-to-face meeting with key customers and prospects

•

Latest e-Solution services and initiatives from across Asia

6 - 8 February, 2007 Putrajaya International Convention Centre, Malaysia

Asia's largest conference on ICT4D

ASiA 2007

ASiA 2007

egov Asia 2007 will bring together some of the best minds from the highest echelons of government, industry, academia and civil society to discuss and deliberate on the key strategies for e-Government. The conference aims to create an invaluable Asian platform for consultative dialoguing, strategic planning, knowledge networking and business partnering in the field of e-Government.

Highlights: • National e-Government strategies • International and regional perspectives • Policy reforms for ICT-enabled governments • Models of e-Service delivery • Emerging technology solutions

Digital Learning Asia 2007 will bring some of the key drivers from the leading countries of technology-enabled education to deliberate on the pressing challenges of technology-enabled education from capacity building to reengineering pedagogy; change management to providing digital access.

Asian Telecentre Forum 2007 aims to bring the Asian practitioners on a platform for learning and sharing the experiences. Experts will be engaged in close assessment of issues relating to project monitoring steered by external financial support, from international development agencies & governments in Asia.

Highlights

Highlights • Telecentre movement in Asia: Road ahead • Partnerships for developing telecentre networks • Financing mechanism and sustainability factors of rural telecentres: A reality check • Service delivery and capacity building through telecentres

• National strategies on ICT in education • Localisation, customisation and content development • Educating the educators • Re-engineering pedagogy • e-Learning trend and practices • Education technology trends in Asia

Get Visibility through our Four Niche Magazines

ASiA 2007

Key Speakers

eHealth Asia 2007 aims to provide a platform to discuss the recent trends and emerging issues in the development of information & communications, science and technology and its integration in healthcare systems.

Conference will provide a knowledge sharing platform for deliberating on the opportunities and possibilities of ICT use for better health care delivery.

mServe Asia aims to discuss and showcase the different aspects of mobile services, technologies, implementation and implications, developments on the public administration and tie them to the existing and future m-Government, education, agriculture and other applications. The conference will provide a platform to promote networking and business opportunity development.

Highlights

Highlights • Enterprise mobile workforce management • Mobile infrastructure and connectivity issues • Next Generation 3G Network • mLearning • mServices • Emerging applications

• e-Health in developing countries • e-Health administration and management • Rural telemedicine • Emerging technologies in e-Health • Challenges and opportunities for collaborative action in e-Health

• Walter Fust, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) • Richard Fuchs, International Development Research Centre (IDRC) • R. Chandrashekar, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology, Government of India • Gerri Elliot, Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Public Sector, Microsoft

Host and Partner Organisations Host Organisation

Supporting Partners

Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications, Malaysia The Ministry is the key policy formulator and service regulator in Energy, Water and Communications sectors in Malaysia. The Ministry's main thrust is to facilitate and regulate the growth of industries in these sectors to ensure the availability of high quality, efficient and safe services at a reasonable price to consumers throughout the country. www.ktak.gov.my/

The Asia Foundation is a non-profit, nongovernmental organization that supports programs in Asia that help improve governance and law, economic reform and development, women's empowerment, and international relations. www.asiafoundation.org/

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission is the regulator for the converging communications and multimedia industry. The role of the MCMC Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission is to implement and promote the Government's national policy objectives for the communications and multimedia sector. www.cmc.gov.my

International Government Partners The Commission in Information and Communications Technology, Philippines, is the primary policy, planning, coordinating, implementing, regulating, and administrative entity of the executive branch of Government that promotes, develops, and regulates integrated and strategic ICT systems and reliable and cost-efficient communication facilities and services. www.cict.gov.ph The National Computer Center (NCC), Philippines, fundamental functions were to provide information bases for integrated planning and implementation of development programs and operational activities in the government. www.ncc.gov.ph

Knowledge Partner INTAN is a premier government institution of Malaysia providing world-class training and capacity building programmes for public sector organisations of the country. www.intanbk.intan.my

www.e-ASiA.org

ASiA 2007

ASiA 2007

Bellanet promotes and facilitates effective collaboration within the international community, especially through the use of ICTs. www.bellanet.org The Commonwealth is an association of 53 independent states consulting and co-operating in the common interests of their peoples and in the promotion of international understanding and world peace. www.thecommonwealth.org

telecentre.org is both a social investment program that supports grassroots telecentre networks and a loose family of organizations with a common commitment to helping the telecentre movement thrive. www.telecentre.org In India USAID is investing in economic growth, health, disaster management, environment and equity in India and in programs that focus on areas where help is needed most and people-level impact is high. www.usaid.gov in Warisan Global is a knowledge strategy company of Malaysia that is in the business of designing, developing and executing projects in the area of bridging the digital divide and grassroots entrepreneurhsip. www.warisanglobal.com

Institutional Partners The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a multicampus university of global standing, with distinctive strengths in education and research and an entrepreneurial dimension. www.nus.edu.sg

MobileMonday Malaysia is an open community of mobile professionals fostering cooperation and cross-border business development through virtual and live networking events that share ideas, best practices and trends from global markets. http://www.mobilemonday.com.my/

UiTM is Malaysia's premier institution of higher learning that has experienced a phenomenal growth since its inception in 1956. www.uitm.edu.my

Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) is Switzerland's international cooperation agency within the Swiss Foreign Ministry. www.sdc.admin.ch Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) was established on 30 November 1965 as a chartered international organization whose purpose is to promote cooperation in education, science and culture in the Southeast Asian region. www.seameo.org Sarvodaya is dedicated to making a positive difference to the lives of rural Sri Lankans. www.sarvodaya.org

University of Malya

Universiti Malaya is the first University of Malaysia, situated in the southwest of Kuala Lumpur - the capital city of Malaysia. www.um.edu.my

Conference Contacts Exhibition: Himanshu Kalra (himanshu@e-asia.org) Papers: Prachi Shirur (prachi@e-asia.org) Registration: Mukesh Sharma (mukesh@e-asia.org) General Information: Himanshu Kalra (himanshu@e-asia.org)

Asia's largest conference on ICT4D

Top Reasons to Exhibit at eASiA 2007 Targeted audience eASiA 2007 brings the right mix of quality delegates unparalleled at any other Asian forum. Unlike many other general IT fairs, it addresses the need to bring region's top public sector buyers at one place thus saving time and resources of focussed suppliers.

Valuable opportunity for face-to-face meetings eASiA 2007 maximises the face-to-face time exhibitors spend with key customers and prospects through informal meetings, structured appointments and many networking lunch and dinner receptions.

Listen to key decision-makers' needs eASiA 2007 gives you access to government IT decision-makers with the need, the authority and the budget to buy your products and services.

Focussed sessions for sponsors to position their solutions Sponsors could benefit from the key sessions, panel discussions and workshops by participating in the discussions and presenting their solutions to the quality audience from around Asia-Pacific and beyond.

Proven organisers eASiA 2007 is organised by Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) and GIS Development, who have more than 10 years of experience in organizing niche events on ICT and GIS across continents along with several government partners.

Exhibitor's Response!

"I wish to congratulate you all on pulling off not one but three conferences, all at the same platform. That was truly audacious in scope."

Cisco

"I congratulate the CSDMS team for organising such a prestigious event. It was insightful for us at least."

Canon India

"I was deeply honoured to participate in the conference. The quality of discourse, talent and depth of knowledge by the speakers, and the extraordinary opportunity for learning made Vision 2010 a great success for TechSoup."

TechSoup

www.e-ASiA.org

6 - 8 February, 2007 Putrajaya International Convention Centre, Malaysia

Exhibition Floor Plan 11

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Entrance For any enquiry on exhibition contact: Himanshu Kalra (himanshu@e-asia.org) Tel: +60166852201

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6 - 8 February, 2007 Malaysia

DELEGATE REGISTRATION FORM Personal details

First Name ...................................................................................................................................................................................................

Last Name....................................................................................................................................................................................................

Designation/Profession .................................................................................................................................................................................

Organisation ................................................................................................................................................................................................

Address........................................................................................................................................................................................................

City................................................................................ .Postal Code .........................................................................................................

State .............................................................................. .Country ...............................................................................................................

Tel.(O) ............................................................................ .(R)........................................................................................................................

Mobile ........................................................................... .Fax.......................................................................................................................

Website.......................................................................................................................................................................................................

E-Mail .........................................................................................................................................................................................................

Delegate type: Author

Regular

Exhibitor

Sponsor

Supporting Partner

NGO

Private

Academics/Institutions

Sector: Govt.

My primary interest area is: egov Asia

Digital Learning Asia

Asian Telecentre Forum

I would like to receive weekly e-Newsletter on: egov Payment mode: Demand Draft

Digital Learning Cheque

eHealth

mServe

i4d Wire Transfer

Payment Details: Cheque/Demand Draft No. ............................................... or Transaction ID .......................................... Dated ..................

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GSIS issues new e-Card system in Philippines

IN THE NEWS

GSIS Wireless Automated Processing System (G-W@PS) has launched the GSIS (Government Service Insurance System) eCard for government employes in Oriental Negros of Philippines. All GSIS members need to access and make use of the G-W@PS kiosk technology, which is 55-inch high, ATM-like machine with a 28-inch by 16-inch touch screen monitor. GSIS is also offering another cash advance to its member, which is known as eCard Plus Cash Advance Program (e-CAP) worth P10,000. e-CAP is the first loan or first assistance programs which is using the G-W@PS technology.

Pakistan’s e-Justice project on track Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for IT and Telecommications, said that Pak. Ps. 40mn eJustice project under e-government programme was on track, and that he is awaiting President Pervez Musharraf’s approval. The project would enable Pakistani Bar Association gain easy online access to statutes and case laws. The first phase of the project has already been launched with the inauguration of Multan District Bar Association automation. During this phase, some 31 bar associations, mostly district bars, from Punjab have been provided online access to statutory and case laws. The remaining bar associations in the province would be automated soon. Leghari said, “The project titled ‘Access to Statutory and Case Laws’ is an extension of an earlier programme whereby the Ministry provided 82 bar associations of the country online access to statutory and case laws for a period of 3 years which ended in April 2006.

Among the beneficiaries of the previous programme included 31 bar associations of Punjab, 16 from Sindh, 21 from NWF of Pakistan, 3 from Balochistan, besides 9 taxbar associations and 3 registry offices of the Lahore High Court.” It may be recalled that the Pakistani government launched e-Government programme in 2002, and aggressively campaigned to put all the public service departments online, but however miserably failed in the absence of comprehensive strategy and design.

Singapore citizens give views on government policies through blogging and SMS Now Singapore citizens can send their views on government policies through public blogging space and also through SMS as a part of new e-Government initiative.

The role of Singapore Government in promoting connectivity and e-Governance plans was outlined at a forum session on “Re-inventing Government for a Digital World” at ITU Telecom World on 10 December.

According to KT Leong, Deputy Chief Executive of the Infocomm Development Authority, the government will allow citizens to give their thoughts on a personal blog section. The government has also allowed people to message the government with their feedback by using their m o b i l e phones.

Singapore Government is planning to set up its s i x t h National ICT plan and third eGovernment plan, which have already more than 1600 public services online and integrated more than 30 government agencies.

Iran’s Aras Free Trade Zone to be fully e-Governed Ali Jalili, Managing Director of Iran’s Aras Free Trade Zone (FtZ), recently said that with the completion of a comprehensive infrastructure telecom plan at over 11 hectares of Aras FTZ, the zone would be fully managed through e-Government in the next 2-3 years. Jalili said that Aras is the closest FTZ of the country to Europe and the Central Asia, and therefore quite vital | January 2007

from the viewpoint of it and telecom advantages. “This region’s IT infrastructure is going to be the most updated generation, according to international and EU standards. By connecting aras FTZ to the international data chain the ground would be paved for the expansion of e-Trade and provision of back up services for European firms,” Jalili stressed.

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Japanese High Court finds national residency registry

Maldives select Singapore’s NCS for e-Government project

Japan’s Nagoya High Court’s Kanazawa branch has found the national residency registry network or Juki Net to be perfectly okay, and has ruled in its favour after overturning a lower court ruling that termed it as unconstitutional and a danger to public privacy. The Kanazawa District Court had passed a judgment against the Ishikawa Prefectural Government in May 2005, which has now been reversed by the High Court judgment.

The residential databases of the local governments across Japan are linked by Juki Net. Ever since its launch in August 2002, security and privacy issues have dogged Juki Net. Eikichi Nagato, presiding Judge, in his ruling stated, “Juki Net does not violate privacy rights and hence is not against the Constitution’s Article 13. Public authorities, such as the state, are allowed to collect, manage and use the personal identification information on Juki Net for legitimate reasons for public welfare.” The plaintiffs said that they would approach the Supreme Court regarding the judgment. Earlier, the plaintiffs argued that their personal information could be easily found and identified on the system, and that they have the right to control the disclosure of their own information is valid under the right to privacy guaranteed by Article 13 of the Constitution. Three municipalities– Tokyo’s Suginami ward, the city of Kunitachi in western Tokyo, and the town of Yamatsuri in Fukushima prefecture– have refused to join the network owing to security concerns.

Maldives’ National Centre for I n f o r m a t i o n technology (NCIT) has engaged Singaporean company NCS for establishing an eGovernment system for the country. NCS bagged the project after competing with six companies, which included an Australian company.

The project is being funded by a loan from the ADB. NCIT officials said that with the advent of e-Government all the regions in the Maldives would be able to a v a i l online services promptly.

By 2011, bureaucracy to go paperless in Nepal An e-government Masterplan as now been prepared by Nepal’s Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology (MoEST) for creating effective and productive e-Government through the application of ICT. The new masterplan comes in the wake of the failure to implement the IT policy introduced in 2000. The IT policy had envisaged putting Nepal on the global IT map by 2005. Prepared with the technical assistance of Korea IT Industry Promotion Agency (KIPA), the Masterplan envisages the creation of a paperless bureaucracy in 5-year 30

period. Young-sik Kim, KIPS’s IT Consultant at the Ministry, said, “The Masterplan would take Nepal into stage 3 of ICT development by 2011 if the political leadership shows strong will to implement it. However, for this Nepal must reengineer business process before applying ICT. The ICT tools can be only applied if there is effective and short-cut ways of business process in the administration,” and added, “the Masterplan, which is divided into 3 phases – ‘as is analysis’, ‘to be model’ and ‘establishment plan’, recommends

building infrastructure and human resources development. Besides, the Masterplan has also recommended the formation of an e-Government Steering Committee, headed by the Prime Minister, to control funding and architecture, define, write and maintain the standards and priorities for development and control the users of data.” At present, Nepal stands at stage 1 in five Promotion stages specified by the UN. This means that the government websites have been created to provide basic information in a static manner. www.egovonline.net |

Department of Administrative Reforms & PG Government of India Department of IT Government of India

Government of Madhya Pradesh

10th National Conference on e-Governance “Enabling Government to Accelerate Transformation” February 2-3, 2007 Vidhan Sabha, Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh) http://darpg.nic.in www.10thnationalegovconf.in

National Awards for e-Governance Nominations are invited from Central Ministries/Departments, States/UTs, Districts, Local Bodies, PSUs, Civil Society Organisations, Industry and individuals for • • • • • •

Excellence in Government Process Re-engineering Exemplary Horizontal Transfer of ICT-based Best Practice Outstanding Performance in Citizen-centric Service Delivery Innovative Technology Usage in e-Governance Exemplary Usage of ICT by PSUs Best Government Website

Last date for receipt of nominations is December 31, 2006 Nominations must be sent by e-mail to awards@arpg.nic.in A hard copy of the nomination may also be sent to Ms. Lekha Kumar Director (e-Governance), Department of AR & PG Sardar Patel Bhawan, Parliament Street, New Delhi – 110 001 Telephone: +91 11 23743030 E-mail: lekha.kumar@nic.in For more details on the Conference and Awards, you may visit these websites http://darpg.nic.in, www.10thnationalegovconf.in

BUSINESS

IN THE NEWS

Lenovo launches India’s first Innovation Centre Lenovo has launched its first India innovation centre in Mumbai, India. The company has launched the India innovation center in partnership with Intel, Microsoft, LANDesk, IBM and Cisco. The center will deploy the globally developed solutions according to specific customers requirements. The centre will serve as a collaboration venue for providing fully integrated solutions. The company is ready to do partnering with other companies for specific domain capabilities in the inno en innovvation ccen entt er er..

RADWin’s Winlink 1000 systems to provide rural connectivity in IndIa Sonet, an Indian non-profit organisation, has decided to deploy RADWin’s Winlink 1000 systems to connect villages and help villagers gaining access to the internet. This is aimed at benefiting them from eLearning, telemedicine and e-Government initiatives. RADWin’s partner vlink Systems would implement the project. Ravi Codala, Sonet’s IT Manager, said that RADWin’s Winlink 1000 Wireless Broadband Systems are expected to give the much needed high-bandwidth and cost-effective connectivity. Besides, in future the systems would also be used to connect more towns and villages.

BSP Upgrades e-Rediscounting System to boost lending operations Philippines Bank Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) recently announced that it has upgraded its e-Rediscounting system in order to give an impetus to lending operations, particularly in the countryside. The BSP has already set aside PHP20bn for its rediscounting window. The adoption of e-Rediscounting would enable a bank to file and submit its loan application online without leaving its workstation. The new system is expected to not only reduce the processing time of loan application and payment but also the intermediation cost of borrowings by doing away with the cost of preparation and transportation of loan documents. With this upgraded system, banks would now be able to know the result of their loan application.

Currently, the borrowing bank has to manually submit its loan applications to the BSP.

Ecquaria Technologies, ictQATAR to develop pilot e-Government services

e-Qur’an by Intel, two Saudi software companies

Singapore’s Ecquaria technologies and ictQATAR, Qatar’s Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology, recently signed an agreement to develop a single integrated platform for launching and supporting pilot online services for the issue of new commercial registration with Qatar’s Ministry of Economy and Commerce. The pilot services would be available in both English and Arabic, and would showcase the functional capabilities of routing to multiple government agencies and integration to their back-end systems. The pilot services would be implemented in a six-month period. Under the plan, the

Computer chip maker Intel corp., and two Saudi Arabian software companies – Dar al Rasm Al-Othmani and Semanoor, recently joined hands to develop e-Qur’an and e-Curriculum. Under the partnership, an electronic version of Islam’s holy book Qur’an and a training computer for teachers packed with the government approved curriculum for school children would be developed. Dar al Rasm Alothmani would focus on the religious content, while semanoor would develop e-Curriculum.

The e-Qur’an is a wireless Internet enabled small computer containing the text of the Islamic holy book, audio recitations in 40 different languages and interactive interpretations of the material. The e-Curriculum is a portable Intel-designed computer integrated with software containing Saudi Government approved curriculum for kindergarten through the 12th grade.

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platform would eventually host the Qatari Government’s key eServices and leverage on common reusable services such as user authentication and e-Payment.

The e-services are collectively referred to as ‘Qsi’ project. The agreement is believed to be the first Government-to-Business (G2B) e-Government agreement of its kind in the Middle-East to be sealed by a Singapore software company for a mission critical to e-Government infrastructure.

Ecquaria announced that it would be working with Singapore’s Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) and ictQatar to give impetus to Qatar government’s drive towards fifth generation eGovernment initiatives.

www.egovonline.net |

Tejari to launch e-Tenders information service

Accela Velocity Hall public access portal launched

Tejari and the Development Gateway Foundation have entered into a partnership to launch a new online Government Tender information service called ‘Manshoori’, to be launched by January 2007. Manshoori would enable governments across the Middle east to create online tenders in English and Arabic to widen the pool of organisations bidding on infrastructure and other key projects.

Omar Hijazi, Chief Executive Officer, Tejari, said, “Regional governments have become increasingly comfortable with the online procurement model due to the cost savings and increased efficiency it delivers. Manshoori creates a real-time tendering platform for the billions of dollars in development projects currently taking place around the region, from energy and gas to telecommunications, electricity and healthcare. Our exclusive agreement covers 17 countries in the Arab world allowing Manshoori to support the entire Arab world.

Accela Velocity Hall was recently launched as a new public access portal in the Californian city of Yorba Linda.

Announcing this, the government enterprise management software solutions provider Accela, Inc. said that the portal would help contractors, development professionals and homeowners access various government services online. The portal would enable citizens and businesses to apply and pay for permits, check the status of permits, schedule inspections, and check inspection results from the internet at any given time.

The Community Development Department of the city through its building division would make available several permits available online. The permits to be made available include electrical replacements/upgrades, plumbing replacements, mechanical replacements, reroofs, and water heater replacements.

Vietnam’s FPT unapologetic for Railway’s e-Ticket website crash

FPT, Vietnamesenetwork supplier for Saigon Railway’s e-Ticket purchasing website, has said that it could not be held responsible for the recent website crash. Pham Thanh Tuan, Director of FPT Telecom Infrastructure Management Centre, disowned any wrong- doing by his company after | Januray 2007

hundreds of buyers were left in the lurch when they were unable to access the railway ticket website to purchase train tickets. According to Tuan, the website had the capacity to simultaneously facilitate 450-500 customers. “The problem was with the railway company’s software for the

website. In fact they continued to use Mega office instead of switching to FPT’s Fibernet service, which offers rapid speed and higher capacity.

FPT is responsible for supplying internet service and the cable only, and does not write site software,” Tuan charged.

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IndustryPERSPECTIVE “In the area of e-Government, Singapore is definitely ahead than other countries in Asia. The other country that is probably catching up is India, if we look at the number of initiatives in India. Coming to the status of other countries, Malaysia is more in a catch up phase. In Malaysia there is lot of sponsorship, the challenge there is of implementation itself. The emphasis should now be more on creating awareness among citizens about various services,” opines Foo Jung Wei, Director, e-Government, Oracle Corporation, Asia Pacific, in a tête-à-tête with egov

Collaborative services dictating e-Government trends Please tell us about your regional spread?

We are at ASEAN region. We call it ASEAN, though it includes more than ASEAN countries, for example, Pakistan, Bangladesh, which comprise our second region. The third region is India. The fourth region is Australia and New Zealand. And, the fifth one is Korea. We may have the entire region. But we have the regional country e-Government plans. My manager would concentrate on the regions that he is responsible for. What I do as my job, is to provide overall guidance to all the five regions.

What is the span of the e-Government projects, which are the major projects of e-Government that you oversee in this entire region?

I would first tell you what is e-Government, since e-Government means different things to different people. Some people refer to it as a broader term anything that is IT government is eGovernment. My definition of e-Government is the services directly provided to the citizens. For example, if the project involves the treasury reforms that does not come under me because that is more of internal reforms. But something that involves providing direct services to the citizens. For example, if there is e-Seva, there is a direct provision of services that 34

comes under my purview. Similarly, e-Tax service comes under me, but for something like back-office processing there are teams looking after it. That is how we are organised internally in Oracle.

What are the major emerging trends in e-Governments projects today?

Today if you look at what is important for the governments in providing e-Services, its more on how do we link up. Let me put it this way, how do we link the services that the government typically provides in the traditional environment, and how do we actually move that forward electronically to the citizens. Let’s take an example of taxation. Previously, people used to scribble hundreds of forms. However, what is happening today is the government asking how do we reduce cost and improve convenience to the citizens. So I guess what is important today for the government is the convenience factor.

If we look at from the trends perspective as to what is going to happen, that is something that we have been engaged with a lot of clients, is that, look, providing a service that used to be manual and making it online is just a very small part of what can be delivered from the value perspective. www.egovonline.net |

I believe that the trend is moving forward. Most governments are really thinking about providing, what we call, collaborative services. A lot of services that are being provided are more of a translation from a manual to electronic perspective.

But it is still very much, what I call, a oneto-one perspective. One-to-one perspective means that governments today are organised is by silos. Silos organise their text operations. For the citizens, yes, there is the convenience factor, but that does not need to go down to text. But what has not changed is the complexity of doing business with the government. You are running a business, for instance, entertainment industry; I am not sure how many agencies you will have to interact with for getting the license. So for the govern-

ments, the trend today is how do we actually simplify the interactions with the government. You as a businessperson, would not like to interact with so many different departments. I guess the value that you get today is that instead of filing manually, you are filing in a way, which is simpler, and you are interacting with government as one agency and not the different departments. I think the governments are slowly moving towards that.

The second trend is more of a gradual shift in focus by most governments of the definition of value. In implementation terms, value lies in providing services to citizens. The focus is more on the convenience factor, how best we can provide | January 2007

services that is convenient to the citizens.

So it is too very much the governmentcitizen convenience. I also see there is gradually an emerging trend towards governments looking not just at the convenience factor, but what projects that are helping governments in terms of national competitiveness. Let’s say for example, a country, as part of its national competitiveness, views logistics as important. This is the case with Singapore where logistics is a very important component of national competitiveness. So for Singapore, the strategy projects will be that how can I use the Internet for eServices in order to enhance the national competitiveness. So the ability to set up, for example, logistics hub across the region, is going to be important for Singapore. In countries where,

for example, education is very important, not just the local citizens but foreign citizens to the country, for countries like Australia, there would be a lot of efforts on how to use Internet and eServices in order to accomplish the task. So, what I see as a trend is that there is an increasing focus in the governments, on not just in providing services but also increase in focus on the niche projects that increases the national competitiveness of the country.

The third important trend that I begin to see happening in some of the more developed countries like Australia, for example, is not just looking at the external facet but to look at it internally, and that is going to be much more focused, not so

much on the quality of services, but costsavings. For the last 20-30 years, governments have been providing a lot of internal, back office administrative functions.

Almost every government agency has its own HR and finance. So the current trend is how to consolidate all these services like HR, finance into something that can be shared across the various agencies. Like, for example, what they are doing in Western Australia, instead of having 150 agencies that are HR and finance consulting, they are now consolidating. Consolidating is not something new. Most governments, in the last decade or so, have been consolidating, but they are consolidating from a technical angle. Shared services is about not just consolidating the technical aspects of it, but to be able to put the processes in the organisational order. And, the value proposition is quite compelling.

So instead of having 150 agencies with150 HR, there would be one HR providing shared services to all other agencies. That is going to be a very important trend. We see that Australia, in this region, is probably the leader. But places like Singapore are really telling us how to actually do it.

So I believe that within 1or 2 years that is going to be too important.

Which government, at the Asia level, is moving faster than the other government in the area of e-Government? Which country is approaching towards the concept of ‘one government’, is it Singapore or some other country?

I would say that Singapore is definitely ahead than other countries in Asia. The other country that is probably catching up is India, if we look at the number of initiatives being undertaken there. India’s challenge is not really the willingness to do it, but the real challenge is its size and diversity. To compare India with Singapore is not a fair process. India, if you look at the country level, they loose rather. But if you look India from more of a business basis, as to what each of the different local governments are doing, some of them are actually doing very well. Like for example, Andhra Pradesh. So India, if you look at it as a province, they are actually doing as well as Singapore. But if you look India as a whole, they may be little behind.

Coming to the status of other countries, Malaysia is more in a catch up phase.

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I would say that if you were to draw the entire stages of e-Government implementation, Stage 1 is to get all the services online, Stage 2 will be the stage of collaboration; I would say that Malaysia is probably, in between Stage 1 and 2. In Malaysia there is lot of sponsorship, the challenge there is of implementation itself. But there is not much awareness about the services initiated by the government in Malaysia as compared to that in Singapore. The government of Singapore also gives a lot of emphasis on e-Government apart from creating awareness among the citizens about its eServices.

What is your opinion about mobile governments, which is very emerging right now and people talk about mobile government? Other than advanced countries like Singapore, where you have a lot of mobile penetration, in countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, where there is not much of IT infrastructure, it is still developing, how long will it take for mobile government to come into this picture? Will the mobile government actually really help?

I feel it is a bit difficult for us to look forward within the next 2-3 years time because the technology is moving very fast.

There are probably two important factors in this. The first factor is simply technology in order to be able to provide richer content, and high level of interaction to the citizens. Mobile phones frankly are a very limited source for information, not much you can do about it. But with the advent of more advanced way of interacting that is going to be increasingly important. The second aspect is simply because of the richer content, what I call the digital divide. It is going to be really acute in the coming years. If you look at the country like China, that would not be a problem and it would go at a very fast pace in larger cities like Beijing, Shanghai, etc. But we should not forget that 70% of its population lives in rural areas. That is going to be a social problem because the haves will become increasingly better, but at the same time, the have-nots in the rural areas would be the left outs. That is going to be social problem in the longer term. What I do find to be encouraging is what the Indian Government is doing. If you look 36

at their project e-Seva, the primary motive of e-Seva is to be able to provide facilities to the rural people. And, they are doing it in a very innovative way. In India, if I am not wrong, they are implementing it in around 200 locations. I think this is a very positive step. Indian Government should embark on the e-Seva project in a much larger way.

The digital/social divide issue should be addressed. The Government should be taking a lot more interest in this, especially in large countries like India, China, not to forget Indonesia. All of this is important in the context of state of advancement in technology and everything. Unless Governments are able to provide an inclusive policy, I believe that digital divide is going to be a problem in the future. I am, therefore, very glad to see that Governments of India and Thailand are making efforts towards social inclusion of the masses in the technology arena.

class software. Oracle, if you compare with its competitors, CRM is going to be very important. Oracle is unique since it has both world-class infrastructure, and world-class CRM. That is the proposition that Oracle has for their clients. The e-Government programmes are so complex and diverse that our clients say to us, “Look I am too tired of having to integrate products from twenty different vendors, we are looking towards you. Can you provide everything?” We say, “Yes, if not 100%, then at least 90%”. So, that is the strategy of Oracle when moving forward, to be able to provide through a single stop, as much as a complete range. Thirdly, beyond infrastructure and beyond CRM, clients will be increasingly asking us for domain specific solutions and need-based solutions, like tax, social security. That is the direction that Oracle is moving forward. Within the next 18 months, we would be focusing on a lot in this area.

As Governments in Asia move in a little catch-up mode towards Americans, Australians or the Europeans, you need the best-in-class software. Oracle, if you compare with its competitors, CRM is going to be very important. Oracle is unique since it has both world-class infrastructure, and world-class CRM. That is the proposition that Oracle has for their clients.

What is your future strategy or plan to have more initiatives in the public domain?

We have lot of plans. If you look at e-Government implementation, I believe that compared to our competitors, Oracle is going to be in a very unique position.

Unique in the sense that in order to implement a good e-Government programme you need to have two very important components. The first component is what I call the technology infrastructure component – the middle-ware, databases, the identity management and so on. I strongly believe that Oracle is the leader in this area.

The second component that is fast emerging in Asia region is the value-applications, things like CRM, Customer Data Hut, all of these are increasingly important. As Governments in Asia move in a little catchup mode towards Americans, Australians or the Europeans, you need the best-in-

You have established ‘e-Government Centres of Excellence’ in various countries. What is the objective of these centres? You already have a Public Sector Group, so what is the definite agenda and objective of these second of these e-Government Centres?

Organisationally, a separate business unit runs the Centre for Excellence (COE). Quite broadly, the purpose of the COE is to work very closely with the government so that they are able to help them in a systematic fashion and guide them in their specific programmes. What my unit does is to make sure that the messages, the strategies, are consistent across the region. And, the COE would then take down strategies, the messages to the market and make sure that what Oracle is trying to do organisationally is best translated in a way that COE can work closely with the government. www.egovonline.net |

Which of the Oracle e-Government services find maximum demand in the public sector?

The highest demand that most governments have from Oracle is to advice them on their national e-Government strategy.

For instance, in Sri Lanka, in some cities in China, in Thailand, where they are embarking on their national e-Government strategy, and the demand from Oracle is to help them develop their eGovernance roadmap. So as far as e-Government is concerned we are in the stage where we are helping the governments to be able to fine-tune and develop their national level roadmap. I would say that right now, most of these governments have not gone down to ushered implementation. My unit is more involved in the consultancy phase. So that is the biggest demand that we have.

How hopeful are you regarding the government IT spending in future compared to today?

There is no single answer to this for across the Asia Pacific because different countries have got different priorities. I believe that most of the willingness to spend is not from the developed countries, but from the developing countries. Let me give you an example of Vietnam, not exactly considered to be developed country, they have a very strong willingness to invest in IT. The difference between the developed and the developing countries are that the developing countries are in the catch-up mode, while the developed countries are in the maintenance-mode.

There is a strong willingness in the governments

private sector. My experience has been that there is a willingness from the government side to collaborate but the key barrier to that is the procurement process, they are facing a lot of problem from a regulatory point of view. My speculation is that it is not going to happen in the near future, because I have seen a number of public-private initiatives where the government starts by saying, “Ok you invest in this, I’ll invest in that and together we are going to do this”, but somewhere down the line it breaks down. There is a strong willingness in the governments to partner with the private sector, but it is going to be a bit slow because of the regulatory concerns. So, that I would say is going to be a challenge, especially the timeline of implementation is always going to be a challenge.

to partner with the private sector, but it is going to be a bit slow because of the regulatory concerns.

How clear are these governments regarding the public-private partnerships?

When you refer to public-private collaboration, there are different models of this collaboration. One model is involving the private partners as investors in the project; another model is taking the expertise from | January 2007

What are the challenges that Oracle faces in implementing its solutions in the public sector, especially in developing countries like Asia?

There are not many challenges. The only challenge is the contract, the timeline.

There is not so much of challenge but something that we want to pay attention is that related to the value equation to be equally understood by all parties. Value equation means that in any engagement that we have with our clients, there are always a number of stakeholders, part-

ners and the recipients/beneficiaries, i.e. the citizens. The challenge here is we have to always keep in mind is to make sure that there is adequate balance in these different engagements.

What are some of the successful case studies, which you can think of?

If you look out globally, we are very proud in a lot of major initiatives, Oracle has played a major role. For example, in the US, internal revenue services, it is probably the largest and most important references that we have. And that’s a huge implementation. That implementation involves close to 100,000 IS employees, the benchmark for that is they are actually delivering at the magnitude of 1, 500 calls, at any point in time. If we look at it from, say for example, in terms of political importance, the 811 services in New York City, they are handling close to a million calls from at least 120 agencies, that’s huge. In defense, we are working with the US Air Force, in implementing their eLogistics system, which is also huge. My point is that if you look around the world, there are different factors, be it defense, tax, be it citizen services, the most important projects around the world is Oracle’s. In Asian region, our successful projects are e-Seva, Western Australia Project, the Philippines Social Security Project, and so on.

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InPRACTICE

Semantic based platform for e-Government services Marian Mach | Tomas Sabol

C

urrent trends in e-Government call for services that are simple to use, shaped around and responding to the needs of citizens. On practical grounds, the search for and integration of services are basic requirements of serviceoriented systems, which aim at gathering and transforming processes – needed for a particular user – into one single service and the corresponding back-office practices.

Unfortunately, the domain of e-Government is a perfect example of a domain ridden by semantic problems – barriers in which the lack of interpretation of information meaning is the key obstacle for networked computer applications in administrative processes and services. This domain is characterised by its enormous challenge to achieve interoperability, given the manifold semantic differences of interpretation of, for example, law, regulations, citizen services, administrative processes, best-practices, etc. within and across regions.

These semantic differences are related to a great variety of IT solutions currently in operation (on a local, regional, national, and international level), which will have to be networked. Semantic barriers of information exchange have a vertical and horizontal dimension (front-to-back and back-to-back interoperability). It is not possible to rely on integrated systems within e-Government services because of the heterogeneity of IT infrastructures in administration and the tendency to operate closed systems and networks. More38

over, each of the local administration has its own understanding of the domain (e.g. of the services to be provided to citizens and other clients) as well as of the interoperability needs. Domain specific standardisation as well as methods and tools may certainly help, but they will not unify the perspectives and the (professional) language of the actors involved.

On the other hand, many capabilities, which can be delivered by using semantic technologies, are applicable in the e-Government area. Some of the capabilities include concept-based search (precise and concept-aware search using knowledge representations across multiple knowledge sources); semantic data integrator (allowing data to be shared and under-

Current trends in e-Government call for services that are simple to use, shaped around and responding to the needs of citizens. However, the domain of e-Government has of late become a domain ridden by semantic problems particularly in terms of achieving interoperability

stood across a variety of settings); semantic service discovery and choreography (reuse of existing services and the dynamic automation of processes); and, consultant services (understanding of customer goals and offering products and services which can help them meet those goals).

Therefore, the combination of the two domains - e-Government and semantic technologies - seems to be quite natural.

From the technical perspective, the main challenges related to these technologies are to identify the objects, which will need semantic mark-up, and to provide reasoning capabilities in order to make feasible the invocation, composition, mediation, and automatic execution of complex services with multiple conditional paths of execution. The semantic technologies can be an ideal platform to achieve the vision of a knowledge-based, user-centric, distributed, interoperable, and networked eGovernment.

Access-eGov project The European FP6-2004-27020 project Access-eGov (www.access-egov.org), funded by the European Commission under the Information Society Technology Framework Programme 6, started in January 2006, and is expected to last 36 months.

Access-eGov aims at the development of component-based enhancements of existing e-Government infrastructure based on semantic technologies and distributed architectures (service-oriented and peerto-peer). These components will enable for any (new or already existing) e-service on www.egovonline.net |

all levels of public administration (local, regional, national, and transnational) to be easily introduced to the world of e-Government interoperability. Once an e-service is registered, it may be localised, contracted and used automatically through agents and other IT components. At the same time, more information necessary for the use of traditional (non e-) services will be provided and thus the “integration” of traditional and e-services into “hybrid scenarios” can be enabled. And, since not all users feel comfortable when dealing with a myriad of services, a virtual personal assistant will guide users through these scenarios.

Functionality and benefits of the Access-eGov platform can be summarised as follows – For e-Government service providers on all levels there should be easy registration of e-services to the AccesseGov platform; for end users (citizens and businesses), there should be improved accessibility of government services, identification of government services (whether online or traditional) relevant to the user’s need (life event / business episode) and the context (location etc.); providing them with a user tailored (personalised) scenario consisting of available elementary government services (the scenario is either purely electronic in case that all the necessary government services are available online or “hybrid” - if it is a combination of traditional and online services); guidance through the designed scenario; and, support of semantic interoperability across organisational/regional borders and languages (multi-lingual solution) while guaranteeing appropriate level of security for all involved parties. | January 2007

Conceptual models The Access-eGov will use three basic ontologies – Life event ontology, Service profile ontology and Domain ontology.

In general, these three ontologies describe several aspects and levels of the same real world data. All of them denote services (web or traditional) and the way they are used.

Life event denotes a specific situation in the life of a citizen or in a life cycle of an organisation that requires a set of public services to be accessed and utilised. Life events can be categorised in groups and may be organised in multiple hierarchies.

Generic scenario specifies a generic composition of the goals relevant to a typical complex life event. Goal specifies those objectives that a client might have when consulting a service, including functionalities that a service should provide (from the user’s perspective).

Goals formalise user needs by specifying the requested outputs and effects.

Goals are logically matched against service capabilities.

Service profile specifies what the service provides, and the way it is used to advertise services. A service profile consists of non-functional and functional properties. Functional properties describe inputs, outputs, preconditions and effects of a service. They are specified as logical expressions, which consist of the terms constraining type and property values of the various resources required for or provided by the services. Types used to specify functional properties are defined in the domain specific ontologies. Non-functional properties describe the semi-structured information intended for requesters to discover

services (e.g. information about the service provider and properties which incorporate further requirements for service capability – traditional office hours and office location, quality-of-service, security, trust, etc.). Structured non-functional properties are specified by domain specific ontologies.

The domain ontology would be used to describe the lower (i.e. technical) level, whereas other ontologies would be utilised to denote more abstract system levels. In order to allow interaction and deduction between the different data models that underlie these ontologies, several layers of mediation needs to be introduced.

In the process of service discovery, goals and functional properties of services are semantically matched to select services, which are able to achieve given goals. Non-functional properties are then used to additionally filter or reorder the discovered services according to a requester’s preferences. Workflow specifies composed activities (electronic or traditional services), which fulfill goals in the generic scenarios.

Functional overview The approach taken by the Access-eGov project can be depicted as a pyramid. The pyramid consists of five layers creating a vertical hierarchy. Each layer can provide services for external applications (through a set of APPs interfaces) or can be used by the next upper layer in the hierarchy.

Since the project uses semantic technologies to be able to search for appropriate services and to ensure their semantic interoperability, the omni-presence of ontologies is not too surprising. In order 39

to register a service, it is necessary to provide a semantic annotation of the service, i.e. information describing the service at several levels. The project takes the position not to be invasive in existing solutions. This enables to index not only services currently without any semantic information attached but also services, which were developed with semantics in mind.

All semantic descriptions are expected to be stored in a decentralised semantic directory infrastructure. Its role is to serve as ‘yellow pages’ of all the services provided by governmental organisations.

The services can be of three types – automatic services available electronically (e.g. web services), services accessible electronically, but requiring manual communication with user (e.g. filling and submitting some form), and services not accessible electronically (e.g. user has to visit a governmental institution). Information finding and brokering layer serves as a data provider/search agent enabling to benefit from semantic description infrastructure. It enables to find which service types can be principally offered to a user.

The aim of the service composition layer is to generate a complex plan (workflow) how to cope with the given life event or a business episode. In order to satisfy a particular need in the given life event, a plan (containing information like which services should be used, in what sequence, in what way etc.) will be assembled. The life event (or some business episode) is represented as a generic scenario, how to meet a goal resulting from the given life-event or business episode. Execution of the plan is be supervised by the personal assistant. It performs some activities electronically on behalf of the user, but some activities have to be performed by the user himself. The user is asked to carry out some tasks, e.g. to take the form (delivered by the assistant), fill it in (some items may be pre-filled by the assistant), print it, sign, send by post or go to a relevant public administration institution.

between different types of legacy systems used within public service backend. The result is expected to be a flexible service-oriented architecture that goes beyond existing e-Government systems and overcomes restrictions of the existing solutions.

Since Access-eGov is envisioned to build a service-oriented platform, it is supposed to be highly modularised and shall be logically composed of a number of components interacting with each other.

The actual services are still hosted under responsibility and on the premises of the participating public agencies or their respective data centres. They are simply made available through Access-eGov and thus do not form an integral part of the overall system. Those are either electronically available (directly via web service interfaces or web forms) or represent “traditional” office services that may be described and registered within the platform.

The overall platform may be sub-divided into three major component groups – the AeG Infrastructure itself, the AeG Personal Assistant client and equivalent end user interfaces, and AeG Administration and Management Tools (e.g. Annotation services), which are not integral parts of, but affiliated to the Infrastructure.

Public agencies are supposed to annotate those services that they are willing to expose to the public. These kinds of service-related meta-data will be transferred to the persistence layer of the platform.

Domain experts may use a generic Annotation service component that they will find available as web-based application.

The Personal Assistant accesses functionality of the infrastructure via standardized interfaces and communicates with executable Core components that are charged with Discovery, Composition and Execution of registered public services. Apparently, mediators represent the most complex part of the architecture. Since participating services are mostly in the form of web services (and wrappers of legacy services can simulate this kind of accessing

services), a semantic approach to web services is expected to be utilised.

The Access-eGov system will be represented by nodes constituting a peer-to-peer network. Each node consists of the modules and components as shown above. According to the functionality needed in a particular node, the actual number of installed optional components may vary. Public agencies may choose which of the components they wish to install on their premises or data centres. Such a “local” installation of infrastructure components is supposed to interact as a peer in the network. The more components are installed locally (Core + Mediation + Persistence + Discovery + Composition + Execution), the more functional value a node will bring to the overall system.

Following this aforementioned approach, Access-eGov is to increase the accessibility of public administration services for citizens and business users by supporting the interoperability among existing electronic and “traditional” government services, and envisages achieving this in a seamless manner for the endusers, thus contributing to making e-government accessible and transparent for all.

This is in full accordance with the European Commission’s view that clearly states in e.g. its eEurope+ action plan that “eGovernment can improve public services, making them faster, as well as more accessible and responsive”.

Access-eGov will implement this approach in 3 specific pilots, namely in Slovakia (land-use planning and processing a request for a building permit), Poland (establishing an enterprise, taking into account the registration process of a company), and Germany (secure semantic interoperability between national and local governments). In addition, in Egypt, a challenging test case will be arranged whereby all tasks of an intraEuropean scenario will be included, plus additional challenges of language and cultural differences.

About the authors Proposed architecture Implementing web services in conjunction with service oriented peer-to-peer architecture seems to be the most promising approach with regards to interoperability 40

Marian Mach is in Project Technical Supervision, Technical University of Kosice, Slovak Republic.

Marian.Mach@tuke.sk

Tomas Sabol is Project Coordinator, Technical University of Kosice, Slovak Republic.

Tomas.Sabol@tuke.sk

www.egovonline.net |

Dubai eGovernment to launch online services awareness services

MIDDLE EAST

IN THE NEWS

In an effort to increase the usage of its online services, Dubai eGovernment would be launching an awareness campaign. Dubai eGovernment is aiming to ensure that 50% of government services transactions are carried out online by 2007 end. According to Rehab Lootah, Director, e-Services, Dubai Government, the campaign would target individual businesses and encourage them to reach/help Dubai eGovernment by using those services.

Increased focus on labour inspection, e-Services by Dubai Municipality Dubai Municipality and the Ministry of Labour (MoL) have agreed to cooperate and work jointly in the fields of labour inspection and online services. The agreement was reached at recently between Hussain Nasser Lootah, Acting Director-General of Dubai Municipality, and Dr. Ali bin Abdullah Al Kaabi, UAE Minister of Labour. Lootah and Al Kaabi discussed issues pertaining to labour inspection as well as electronic linking of federal establishments and local government departments. During his meeting, Lootah explained about the steps being taken by the Dubai Municipality in the field of e-Government and its online services. He also briefed the minister regarding the mechanism followed in the inspection of restaurants and other food establishments. The prospect of sharing database of companies and establishments and the possibility of using the Municipality’s Training Centre in training the ministry staff was also discussed.

Meanwhile, the MoL has started undertaking efforts to trace bogus companies by using a satellite network. Aimed at registering companies, the MoL has also launched e-packages and prepared a map to help inspectors gain easy and quick access to work sites. This is the first of its kind e-Government project in the world, and would be linked to a flexible database to receive applications and retrieve data on firms. The project would primarily target firms guilty of irregularities.

It would also offer the service of issuing group permits within a record time of less than 48 hours. The MoL expects around 20,000 companies to be registered across the UAE every month.

Oman to expand e-Governance The Sultanate of Oman has decided to expand its overall eGovernment strategy. As part of its latest series of online services, the Ministry of Health (MoH) has decided to develop three digital tools to enable the ministry’s services effectively and promptly. An e-Referral Engine would be the first in the series to be launched. Successfully tested as a pilot programme in August, the e-Referral Engine would replace paper-based referrals between institutions, and would cover both request and appointment booking besides providing a notification system via SMS. Initially, this would be deployed in tertiary hospitals in 2007 and would be later extended to other hospitals and health centres in the next year. According to Dr. Ali Moosa, Minister of Health, an eNotification Engine, which would cover birth and death notices as well as registering notifiable diseases, is also under construction. The MoH also intends to develop Tele-Education and Tele-Medicine.

The Information Technology Authority (ITA) is already undertaking several e-initiatives and making efforts to implement national infrastructure projects and supervise all projects related to Digital Oman Strategy implementation. Salem alRuzaiqi, CEO of ITA, said, “All the head offices of the ministries would be linked by the end of 2007 and subsequent infrastructure would be extended to the remaining government bodies throughout the Sultanate by the end of the decade.”

42

www.egovonline.net |

EventDIARY

eInfrastructures deployment in India & Europe

T

he first European and Indian eInfrastructures conference, which was held at the Grand New Delhi, New Delhi, India from 14-15 December 2006, attracted over 250 ICT research, industrial and academic delegates. The aim of the first of its kind event was to exchange views on how eInfrastructures are currently deployed in both Europe and India with the objective of analysing how their increasing role is viewed in a business, educational, socio-political and scientific context. The 2-day intensive discussions looked at promoting the sustained use of the EU India link (Geant2 connectivity) and its use by new user communities especially.

The conference was organised by the BELIEF (Bringing Europe’s eLectronic Infrastructures to Expanding Frontiers) consortium. The BELIEF partners hail from varied backgrounds and areas of expertise spanning Europe, Asia, America and Latin America. The BELIEF Consortium possesses experience in Community development, eInfrastructure expertise, networking connections and Digital Library development, sharing complementary skills, international resources and links in the areas of eInfrastructures.

The programme specifically targeted industry and research experts and new users who wish to adopt eInfrastructures effectively within their workplace or research activity. The participants represented a rich mix of industry, government, research and academia, NGOs and European funded projects.

The participants were mainly from India, besides European and Latin American delegates.

Some of the speakers in Europe included representatives from: CNRS-IN2P3 (France), Copenhagen Business School (Denmark), D - Grid (Germany), Eindhoven University of technology (Netherlands), Enginnering (Italy), GEIE ERCIM (France), GRNET (Greece), INFN Cagliari (Italy), Infra Technologies (France), KTH (Sweden), Martel GmbH (United Kingdom), Poznan Supercomputing (Poland), RENATER (France), University of Salerno (Italy).

| January 2007

Additionally, European Commission officials and delegates from the European Union to India were present to exchange information with delegates on opportunities for mutual, collaborative R&D European funded programmes.

Representatives from India included those from the Ministry of IT, ERNET India, Avanade Inc, Sullivan University, C-DAC Noida, Centre for Science Development and Media Studies (CSDMS), DELNET-Developing Library Network, Development and Media Studies, IIIT Bangalore, IIT Bombay, Indian Institute of Statistics, Indian Institute of technology, Institute of Biomedical Technologies, National Informatics Centre, and, PlanetEDU Pvt. Ltd. The visionary plenary and stimulating parallel sessions explored the eInfrastructures. The various topics discussed included Connectivity and sustainability – new user communities for eInfrastructures (services) between India and Europe; Government delivered services – eInfrastructures the current case studies, future plans and visions in India and Europe; e-Health – The new opportunities for EU-India e-Health cooperation using eInfrastructures; Scientific repositories – How can the EU best collaborate with India to create worldwide digital repositories; Digital divide – The eInfrastructures role in reducing the digital divide; Enabling Business – what impact will eInfrastructures have on business in India; Distance and eLearning – harnessing the power of eInfrastructures; and, Mobile Grid – The convergence of eInfrastructures, mobile and Grid technology.

Conference highlights EUIndiaGrid Project Session: The EU-IndiaGrid (www.euindiagrid.org) project session discussed priorities for training and interoperability between EGEE and Indian Grid infrastructures; and explored possibilities of pilot applications for this new infrastructure support project.

Belief Conference Promotional Zone: This Promotional Zone displayed highly relevant documentation published by the European Commission and ERNET. The focus of this promotional area was innovative Grid-enabled technologies and eInfrastructures developed or being developed by Europe and India; national and international initiatives aimed at facilitating the adoption of these new, more powerful resources; and, intensifying collaboration between the two regions and spurring innovation for mutual benefit.

Get In Touch Sessions: BELIEF offered all delegates the chance to participate actively in the conference and learn about the activities of various projects as well as FP7 opportunties.

Each session comprised a series of 10-minutes presentations focusing on project activities and ideas for eInfrastructures funding under FP7. The EuroIndia-IT project was on hand to offer expert advice on future opportunities under FP7 to foster further collaboration between India and Europe.

43

FACTS & DATA

Global Internet adoption slows while involvement deepens The detected slowdown in U.S. Internet adoption may soon become a global slowdown. In “The Face of the Web” annual study from Ipsos Insight, conservative growth was seen in a few key countries.

The most significant stagnation in the uptake of active Internet users was in North America. Regular Internet usage sits at 71 percent in the U.S. and 72 percent in Canada. The percentage of Internet users in North America increased only slightly over the 2005 rate after a growth spurt in 2004. Though the rate of new Internet users is expected to remain stagnant, North America is viewed as an important Internet economy. Adoption of technologies such as Wi-Fi connectivity, RSS feeds, blog authoring and podcasts drive Internet usage and set the pace globally.

in Japan where nine out of 10 people (89 percent of the population, or 75 million users) used the Web within 30 days of the survey. Users in Japan average 14 hours online per week.

France experienced the highest rate of increase in Internet users in 2005, with Germany and Russia following close behind.

“In Europe they show a lot more signs of growth, and we think growth will be strong in that region,” said Wright, who says in parts of Europe there are incentives through service bundles. “I think the whole triple-play promotional perspective is one of the aspects driving growth in Western Europe.”

Data are based on interviews conducted in 12 key global markets with over 6,500 adults, including 3,462 active Internet users.

Global Weekly Internet Usage Time, November-December 2005 Country

“Generally speaking, the world is growing in the amount of time they spend online and what they do online,” said Ipsos Insight Senior Research Manager Adam Wright. “If there was a common denominator, we saw a big spike in the digital music lifestyle across all markets. The story really is that digital music is driving and growing the digital lifestyle across all markets.”

The highest percentage of Internet users within a population is 44

Mean Number of Hours Online per Week

China

17.9

Japan

13.9

South Korea

12.7

Canada

12.3

U.S.

11.4

Mexico

9.2

France

9.1

Germany

8.9

Brazil

8.8

U.K.

8.6

Russia

5.7

India

4.4

Source: Ipsos, 2006

Source: http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3596131

www.egovonline.net |

numbers 16,000 30% is the overall Internet accessibility rate in Asia in 2005 as compared with 1997. the access levels in India surged 132% during the period.

customers were introduced to the e-Government services through 36 UK online centres, according to a research. It was found that 97% of them felt reassured by having staff around to support their first digital transactions.

5

225%

Universities, 51 learning centres, 10 super specialty hospitals and 52 patient-end locations in rural areas spread all over Africa would be connected through seamless and integrated satellite, fibre optics and wireless network to be provided by India, under the Pan-African e-Network project, a joint IndiaAfrican Union initiative.

is the rate of laptop ownership increase in Asia in 2005, while in India the increase was of only 10%. Desktop ownership increased 36 per cent in India compared with 45 per cent in the region.

3,550

44

square km is the range covered under the Akshaya eGovernance project in Kerala, India. This is one of the world’s largest wireless Internet Protocol-based networks connecting 47 police stations and 37 government taluk offices.

36,262 corporate returns were received by the income-tax department through e-Filing up till November 2006 for the assessment year 2006-07. For companies, e-Filing has become mandatory in India.

| January 2007

million AED (US$11.9 million) is the amount spent on online transactions by Dubai Government at the start of 2006 compared to just over 200,000 AED (US$54,000) in 2003.

Dubai Government wants to ensure that 50% of transactions are carried out online and also has a target to put 90% of its services online by the end of 2007.

Source 30%

http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/jan/03wealth.htm

16,000

http://www.uni-potsdam.de/db/elogo/ifgcc/ index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22166&Itemid=93&lang=de_DE

5

http://www.blonnet.com/2006/07/29/stories/ 2006072901192300.htm

225%

http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/jan/03wealth.htm

3,550

http://www.uni-potsdam.de/db/elogo/ifgcc/ index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22129&Itemid=93&lang=de_DE

44

http://www.itp.net/news/details.php?id=22976&category=

36,262

http://www.blonnet.com/2006/11/02/stories/2006110204411200.htm

45

WHAT’S ON 17 January 2007

6 – 7 March 2007

1 – 3 May 2007

e-Government National Conference London, UK

Fifth Annual eGov Summit 2007 London, UK

CeBIT Australia 2007 Sydney, Australia

www.e-governmentawards.co.uk/agenda.php

www.egovsummit.com/

www.agimo.gov.au/resources/events/2006/ cebit_2007

19 – 21 January 2007

8 – 9 March 2007

RFID Expo ‘ LIVE’ India 2007 Bangalore, India

European e-ID Card Conference Leuven, Belgium

www.rfidexpo.in

www.eema.org/index.cfm?fuseaction= focus.content&cmid=328

25 January 2007 Mobile and Flexible Working in the Public Sector London United Kingdom

2 May 2007 e-Government Forum Sydney, Australia www.agimo.gov.au/resources/events/2006/ cebit_2007

27 – 28 March 2007 12th Dubtech Government ICT Summit Dubai, UAE

21 – 22 June 2007

www.headstar-events.com/mobile/

www.datamatixgroup.com/conferences/ agenda.asp?id=297

ECEG 2007: 7th European Conference on e-Government The Hague, The Netherlands

30 January 207

28 – 30 March 2007

www.academic-conferences.org/eceg/ eceg2007/eceg07-home.htm

8th MODINIS workshop – Key success factors and recommendations on interoperability at regional and local level Brussels, Belgium

I-ESA’07 - Interoperability for Enterprise Software and Applications Madeira, Portugal

www.egov-goodpractice.org/event_details. php?phpsessid=9d23a9aae93234a885a7a68d 103a43f8&eventid=1271

3 – 4 April 2007

www.aidima.es/iesa2007/web/index.htm

2nd UAE eGovernment Projects Summit Abu Dhabi, UAE www.datamatixgroup.com/conferences/ agenda.asp?id=303

5 – 6 February 2007 The 2007 Scandinavian Workshop on eGovernment Örebro, Sweden www.electronicgovernment.se/sweg.asp

11 – 13 April 2007 5th Eastern European e|Gov Days 2007 Prague, Czech Republic http://egov.ocg.at/

6 – 8 February 2007 16 April 2007

Putrajaya Malaysia www.e-ASiA.org

O pportunities for

D igital A sia

EISCO 2007 - European Information Society Conference Hämeenlinna, Finland www.hameenliitto.fi/eisco2007/index.php

25 – 28 June 2007 EEE’07- The 2007 International Conference on e-Learning, e-Business, Enterprise Information Systems, and eGovernment Nevada, USA www.world-academy-of-science.org/ worldcomp07/ws/EEE07

8 – 11 July 2007 WMSCI 2007 — 11th World MultiConference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics Florida, USA www.mait.com/newsletters/news183-MAIT% 20Events%20Guide%2023.pdf

18-19 September 2007 Global Biometrics Summit 2007 Brussels, Belgium www.biometricsummit.com/

11 – 12 February 2007 Middle East Electronic Documentation and Archiving Strategies Conference Dubai, UAE www.datamatixgroup.com/conferences/ agenda.asp?id=354

25 – 27 April 2007 TED Conference on e-Government Olten Switzerland http://international.fhso.ch/ted/ted

19 September 2007 World e-ID 2007 Sophia Antipolis, France www.strategiestm.com/conferences/we-id/07/ index.htm

Tell us about your event at info@egovonline.net 46

www.egovonline.net |

6-8 February, 2007 Putrajaya International Convention Centre, Malaysia

Key Topics !

e-Government policies, strategies and implementation

egov Asia 2007 will bring together some of the best

!

e-Democracy and e-Voting

minds from the highest echelons of government,

!

Network and security- Provisions and instruments

industry, academia and civil society to discuss and

!

Training and capacity building in e-Government

!

Emerging technologies in e-Government

for consultative dialoguing, strategic planning,

!

International perspectives

knowledge networking and business partnering in the

!

Public e-Procurement and e-Services

About egov Asia 2007

deliberate on the key strategies for e-Government. The conference aims to create an invaluable Asian platform

field of e-Government.

Key Sessions

Participant Profile

!

Efficiency gains through implementing e-Government

Leading industries players

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Multi-stakeholder partnerships

!

Academia

!

Digital government: What next?

!

UN agencies

!

!

International Donor organisations

e-Government implementation: Challenges and lessons learnt

!

Civil society organisations

!

Technology enhanced e-Services

!

Interoperability and standards

!

Key people from government

!

REGISTER TODAY Organisers

knowledge for change

Host Organisations

Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications (MEWC) Government of Malaysia

eASiA 2007 Secretariat (Malaysia) GIS Development Sdn. Bhd., Suit 22.6, Level 22, Menara Genesis, 33 Jalan Sultan Ismail, Kuala Lumpur 50250, Malaysia Tel: +60166852201 Tel: +60166910129

Principal Sponsor

International Government Partners

Official Security Partner

MCMC

eASiA 2007 Secretariat (India) Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies G - 4, Sector-39, NOIDA - 201 301, India, Tel: +91-120-2502180 to 85 Fax: +91-120-2500060 Web: www.e-asia.org E-mail: info@e-asia.org

www.e-ASiA.org/egovasia.asp