Notes of the World Bank ICT Sector Unit event Global CIO Dialogue on the Future of Government Transformation on 8 November.

Trying to bring the learned lessons from practicioners all around the world (UK, Moldova, Singapore) to real-life projects.

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Philippe Dongier, Sector Manager, Sector ICT Unit, The World Bank

Opening remarks – Introduction of speakers and country audiences

The World Bank is working right now with Moldova on a large government transformation project and this project is also introduced today

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Keynote Address by John Suffolk, UK Government CIO

“Somebody somewhere in the world has already solved the problem” – bringing people together has a large value

It’s difficult to predict the next steps of technology – nobody knew that Facebook, Twitter, … would change the world like that

Governments must respond to the changing needs of globalization

• different media for services (paper, telephone, online forms, …)
• governments are online
• countries’ agencies are very integrated (fed, state, local) – also because of consumer demand
• outsourcing of sectors to the private sector
• Example: iTunes to get text for police officers to different languages when trying to arrest people

Different countries have expertise concerning different eGovernment sectors – mobile services, identity management, …

Tranparency is an issue

• we publish crime data – quickly Android application appeared to show crime in different areas
• UK approach: publishing as much data as we can

The next technology changes cannot be predicted – but what are the trends?

• we have stopped worrying about the future – nobody can keep track of it
• risk is rising
• approach is important: which outcome do I want to deliver?
• everything pervasive is interesting
• not into long term contracts
• not paying big license fees
• scalable services
• all things mobile
• combining small services rather than having monolithic big systems

Where should I start?

• there is no single start position – everybody has a different start position
• start where you can simply and quickly achieve something
• try to pick services which create an infrastructure for another service

Summary

• it’s critically important to bring parties together – learning from each other
• we need to think about where we want to be in 5 years time – past problems are already gone
• anything you can do with teaming up with other countries to solve a similar issue will reduce your risk and learn from each other

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World Bank Project Example: Moldova Governance eTransformation by Stela Mocan, Executive Director of e-Government Center, Moldova

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Our partner the eDevelopment Thematic Group of the World Bank is coming up with another workshop on government transformation via ICTs.

After interesting workshops on – for example

• FLOSS in the public sector
• The Singapore experience
• Investing in broadband infrastructure
• Financial crisis and cloud computing

this time the organizers decided to take a look in the future of government transformation. As written on the eTG homepage of the event:

This workshop […] will feature a keynote presentation by Mr. John Suffolk, Government CIO of UK, who will share the experience of United Kingdom and will speak of the latest technology trends and how they impact government transformation. This will be followed by a panel discussion with senior government officials and CIOs from leading countries on their vision of how online tools and advanced technology can be used to make government processes more transparent, to encourage informed public participation, to foster collaboration across government and with other sectors of society, and to make government administration more cost-effective during the next 5 years. The panelists will discuss the ways in which the cutting edge technologies, such as cloud computing, web 2.0, mobile technology and open data are pursued as tools for government transformation, as reflected in e-government strategies in their respective countries.

The workshop will also introduce the Moldova Governance e-Transformation project as an example of an innovative government transformation initiative leveraging the latest technologies in the context of a transition country […]

The date for the event is November 8 from 8:30 to 10:45 a.m. Washington time.

If you are interested in watching the workshop or even participating, you can register for the webcast and post your questions on Twitter (hashtag #WBCIO). You can find more information and the agenda at the eTG event page on the future of government transformation. After the event you’ll also find a summary here on the blog.

Notes from the eDevelopment thematic Group seminar on the “Use of Free/Open Source Software in the Public Sector: Brazil Experience“.

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Introduction and welcoming speeches

Cem Dener (ECSPE), Deepak Bhatia (GICT), Samia Melhem (GICT), Oleg Petrov (e-Development Thematic Group), Mikhail Bunchuk (Moscow Office), Eduardo Calero

Country offices in Albania, Brazil, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, St. Vincent, St. Kitts

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Presentation
Mr. Eduardo Santos, Project Manager, Ministry of Planning, Brasilia – download presentation

FLOSS in Brazilian government

Regulations for free software in Brazil:

• specific branch in the government responsible for informatics and information policies
• different committees for FLOSS implementation, legacy systems, systems integration

A lot of internal struggle about the usage of free software, everybody thought they had the best policy

A lot of trouble with migrating, adapting, intergrating -> decision to create new software

Brazilian Public Software Portal

• sharing software solutions in the government

FLOSS community in Brazil claimed they were also allowed the source code of a product if they purchased it

Public Software Portal evolved

• companies used software and provided training for other organizations
• groups of interest emerged from the users of the software
• Community, companies, municipalities – all users are very important and have different needs -> it’s an ecosystem
• Now: Providing software solutions for society

Software is more than only software

• it’s a change in attitude
• it’s about innovation – more qualified people
• many economic opportunities
• savings of more than $ 3.750.000 just by sharing software

Applications

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As our partnership with the eDevelopment Thematic Group of the World Bank continues, we would like to announce a coming event: the eGovernment seminar on the use of FLOSS in the public sector. It will take place on 17 December in Washington and will be broadcasted live over webcast at http://wwwr.worldbank.org/edevelopment/live.

The event deals with free-/open-source software and its application in the public sector. Among others, the case of Brazil, which is one of the top-adopters of FOSS software in the public sector, will be discussed. The agenda so far can be found at the eTG event page.

What: eTG seminar: eGovernment Seminar on the Use of Free/Open Source Software in the Public Sector

Where: Washington DC, also available via webcast

When: 17 December, 9:00-12:00 Washington time

ICT4D.at will of course cover the event on Twitter and here on the blog.

Last Wednesday the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group held a workshop on “The Singapore Experience” – how the small country Singapore achieved the transformation to become economically that successful and one of the countries with the most government services accessible by mobile phone or internet.

The notes from the different speakers can be accessed under the following links:

• eTG workshop – The Singapore Experience – part 1
• eTG workshop – The Singapore Experience – part 2

The reason for the whole eTransformation was the desire to attract foreign investment on the one hand, and the will to foster public construction to provide public housing for the citizens. This led to improvements in regulations and the attempt in many sectors to hide the complexity of the government bureaucracy away from the individuals and companies, providing the services of many agencies on an online platform.

The speakers came mostly from the private sector, as Singapore managed its transformation mostly by forming public-private partnerships, with companies providing government services. These companies have gained a lot of experience now, and also consult other nations all over the world on their strategy to implement eServices.

One key aspect of Singapore’s eTransformation was the presence of a long term vision concerning ICT which was in place for 20 years already. The vision was created with changes in technology and administration processes in mind – so these changes didn’t render the vision useless, but were rather absorbed by it.

Another substantial point in Singapore’s eTransformation process was the persistent work with all stakeholders to have everybody on the “same page” of the process. The different agencies involved in the provided services were trained to implement ICT and to share data digitally.

All in all the event gave a complete and interesting insight into the development of the ICT strategy of Singapore and showcased a role model for other nations aiming to focus on the provision of eServices to their citizens. Also it was encouraging to hear about Singapore’s interests in helping and supporting other nations.

Notes from the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group workshop on “The Singapore Experience“ on 30 September in Washington DC.

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Sharing on Government Transformation by Crimsonlogic Pte Ltd

Topic: eGovernance to yield greater socio-economic impact

Speaker: Mr. TAN Sian Lip, Vice President

Public private partnership company

• built by Singapore government
• run as a private company
• providing government services

Singapore Trade Facilitation Journey

On the last 20 years

• Almost everybody in the trade-sector changed their technology
• Administrative roles changed in the last 20 years
• The public didn’t experience any change

Tradenet

• Harmonizing trade admission procedures for companies evolved
• “TradeNet -World’s First Nationwide Electronic Data Interchange System”
• Minimizing processing time for admission to 1 minute
• there exist 2 business case studies, it has been well documented
• many international partnerships, facilitating trade on ports worldwide

Singapore eJudiciary

LawNet

• Platform for processing legal information
• Keeping data digital
• Less hardcopies
• Higher clearance rate
• Cases take shorter time
• Transparency through online availability of cases
• good rating in international comparison

Lessons learnt – Principles of eGovernment

• The application of IT to transform the way governments work, to make them friendlier and more effective
• It is not (just) a large portfolio of technology projects
• It is a large ongoing program of activities involving public administrators and technologists in rethinking how government & the public can work together, and then applying technology to effect the changes

Infrastructure: e-things change all the time, there is always something better

• you should plan carefully so that changes don’t destroy your system, but can be absorbed

Constraints:

• There are never enough resources to design & build all possible eServices

It’s important to build the eServices which have the biggest impact on citizens and business

Partnerships between governments and private companies in developing and implementing services on a risk-and investment-sharing basis

Q & A:

Is there a legalframework for exchangig data online?

• electronic transactions act – very broad
• Computer misuse act
• In Singapore PKI is not so common
• Electronic banking has existed for years and transactions not signed with PKI

Is there competition for IDA in Singapore?

• yes, there is international competition, other companies are bidding for contracts too, but so far no success

Who selects what applications have the highest impact on citizens and businesses?

• The specific agencies decide what the governmental agenda should be
• Then they have to fight for the budget

Common components for eServices?

• Governance is primary
• Architecture is handmade into it
• Basic network, basic logging mechanism, web service gateways, portal infrastructure should be common

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Sharing on Government Transformation by NCS Pte Ltd

Topic: Effective Development – Why is there a need for Public Services Infrastructure (PSi)

Speaker: Mr. NG Beng Lim, General Manager

Company: NCS – national computer system

• providing government services

Key concerns in Singapore:

• economic growth
• education
• utilization of resources
• making society a better place
• how to use IT to promote these issues?

Areas to address:

• governance, administration
• services for citizens
• integrating IT into society
• better management of resources
• developing economy based on IT – in the long term

Every country has to have a clear masterplan what to do with IT

• But how to come from the masterplan to an implementation and successful rollout?

Transformation of IT during the 80s and 90s to today

• Nowadays the prerequisites for successful eServices rollout are ideal
• In early 2000 – government in Singapore started Public Services Infrastructure
• Interface for people to interact with the government
• open infrastructure to more providers – including the private sector

Public Services Infrastructure Components:

• Government Network
• Common Data Centre
• Application Infrastructure
• Common Desktop Services

Features:

• Single sign on
• SMS, email gateway
• personalisation
• service delivery framwork
• ePayment
• Orchestration
• multilingual

Results:

• PSi was started 10 years ago
• Today: SHINE (Service Wide Hosting Environment) by NCS
• Billing model: Subscription-based
• Evens out peak CPU utilisation
• SHINE: Hosting, services and storing on demand

NCS – in the mean time a lot of experience in eGovernment & National ICT Planning

Q & A:

Does the government have a centralised architecture?

• Yes, in Singapore the government came up with a centralized infrastructure

What about security standards?

• The IT infrastructure has to come with an own security framework already

Key objecticves in terms of consilidating the data?

• Make people use the system
• “Selling” tools to the ministries

Many agencies – one government. Government has to have the oversight, but agencies have to have the freedom to act on themselves.

Is there a trend for re-centralization?

• It’s technologically possible
• Is it possible to monitor all local spots where services are running?

Notes from the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group workshop on “The Singapore Experience“ on 30 September in Washington DC.

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Welcome Remarks by Mr. Deepak Bhatia, Lead ICT Policy Specialist, GICT and Ms. Angela PNG, Deputy Director of International Organisation, International Enterprise Singapore

Knowledge sharing event – how Singapore became a leader in eGovernment

Singapore ranked first in eGovernment ranking in four consecutive years, global competitiveness index: 3rd

One factor for that – policy to utilize ICTs in national development

A lot of problems to overcome – e.g. technophobia

Today: ICT masterplan, holistic

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Opening Remarks by Mr. Sun Vithespongse, Southeast Asia Executive Director and Mr. Mohsen Khalil, Director, Global ICT Department (TBC)

Singapore:

• small country with no resources
• therefore it has to be developed in ICTs to become efficient

World Bank group is the biggest sponsor in eGovernment – and has experiences large successes

World Bank should keep on the work, despite the financial crisis

Development in the industry

• a lot of innovation is happening in the developing world
• south-to-north and south-to-south developments

What can ICTs be useful for?

• Powerful transformation forces turning around the way we do business

The integral structure of of governement and important private sectors and their cooperation is very important

Harnessing the power of ICTs is a government and behavioural issue – rather than a technological issue

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Sharing on Government Transformation by IDA International

Topic: Singapore’s ICT Journey – The Past 30 years and the Next 5 years.

Speaker: Mr. YEONG Wee Tan, Deputy Director

ICT sector in Singapore

• 40 bn US$
• 140 000 IT professionals

Six national ICT plans

• Computerisation
• Communication
• Connectivity
• Convergence
• Connectedness
• Creation

It’s necessary to start a dialog on learned lessons – between Singapore and the other nations

A lot of working with foreign agencies

IDA International – Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore

• partnering with other governments, sharing lessons of Singapore and advising them
• not a vendor
• living their lessons
• helping to integrate ICTs

Sharing lessons on different levels

• Infrastructure
• Human capacity – The countries need to have sustainable human capital to carry on with their policies
• Industry and Government
• Governance – which legal framework is necessary
• Outcomes – What are the aims?

Within 15 minutes you can register a Singaporian company around the world

GrBiz – Government to Business open platform

We want to get people used to make everything “e”

• There are 200 government services available on a handheld in Singapore
• Also as a tourist you get all these services available
• A lot of learning devices for schools – “Future schools in Singapore” – to be on the forefront of development
• Also health care projects

Government must evolve to be an open ecosystem

Together with agencies like the World Bank we can teach also other countries how to integrate ICTs in their services and transform their operations

eTransformation can create a better world through ICT

Q & A:

Question about public trust – everything is digital now, do people trust in the system?

• Everybody has one number – took quite a while to harmonize that
• In the beginning of the journey there were problems, but in the mean time people have accepted it
• There is a lot of public consultation

Infrastructure is important but education too – how to talk to ministries trying to prioritize?

Cross agency information sharing?

• There always political trouble  – but the important point is communicate, communicate, communicate the overall goal to everbody
• It’s important to bring the stakeholders together and convince them

What motivates Singapore for international coperation? Typical cooperation between the agency and another country?

• One strategic plan in the Singapore ICT plan is internationalization
• It’s also an export industry, not everything for free – but not a typical consultor, we are there to help people get on the IT journey
• It’s important for us to give back to the world
• We act like a trusted adviser to the government

Do you have an administrative reform plans for the country and how is it linked to the ICT plan?

• Definitely, everything is balanced between administrative reforms, governments processes, … to have everybody on the same page, it’s still ongoing

Comments:

It’s very encouraging to see this international exchange, Singapore is currently working on a P2P portal for government transformation

Sometimes you need to break established ways of work and act outside the framework

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Sharing on Government Transformation by novaCITYNETS Pte Ltd

Topic: e-Transformation to a First World City

Speaker: Ms. Joyce WONG, EVP

Singapore in the 1960 had big problems – a developing country

• GDP per capita: 427$

Several measures to overcome the situation

• Public housing
• Attracting foreign investment – to create jobs

Making Singapore a good place for investment

• Infrastructure improvement – water, electricity, roads, …
• Well thought our master plan
• Constant reform
• Concept plan = blueprint
• Master plan = vision
• Construction = concrete measures
• Twenty years plan

A lot of construction activities

Many issues faced when dealing with construction permits from different agencies

Introduction of COREnet

• streamline and reengineer the processes in the construction industry
• e-submission system launched in 2001
• business re-engineering, project design, training, industry promotion, …
• Interface for businesses to interact with the government
• Variety of agencies are hidden behind the online portal – single point of access
• big success story, companies make use of it, big increase in efficiency

In 2009

• 16 participating agencies
• 700 application forms (2001) to 231
• 30% improvement in turnaround time

Information on eTransformation in Sri Lanka

• All building blocks for a strong eGovernment solution were not in place – when NCS came to rescue
• Trying to replicate the experience of Singapore – but adapt it to the situation in Sri Lanka

Once more our partner – the eDevelopment Thematic Group of the World Bank – will have a workshop in the context of their Government Transformation initiative.

It deals with Investing in Broadband Infrastructure as Part of Fiscal Stimulus Programs and the surrounding questions – what’s the reason for such investments, what are the outcomes and how can it be implemented. The case of Spain – which is also a big player in the ICT4D field due to my subjective judgement – will be presented.

Read a longer introduction at the event page.

The workshop will take place in Washington again, but also be broadcasted over the web.

What: Investing in Broadband Infrastructure for Economic Stimulus and Growth

Where: Washington DC, also available via webcast

When: 22 June, 15:00 Vienna time

ICT4D.at will of course cover the event on Twitter and here on the blog.

We want to announce a new event of our partner – the eDevelopment Thematic Group of the World Bank. This time there will be two workshops on one day: Financial Crisis and Cloud Computing: Delivering More for Less and ICTs for Women’s Empowerment.

Financial Crisis and Cloud Computing deals with the relatively new technology of cloud computing, which means to provide a service not on a physical machine but as a service over the web. Solutions like that are highly scalable and ideally available anywhere anytime.

In the context of the Government Transformation initiative of the eDevelopment group, there are several issues connected to eGovernment which will be addressed during the workshop – data security, data portability, requirements, supply, …

More information on the event page (Financial Crisis and Cloud Computing: Delivering More for Less).

ICTs for Women’s Empowerment deals with gender issues in ICT4D and usage of ICTs. Also the government’s and the World Bank’s role is taken a closer loook upon.

More information on the event page (ICTs for Women’s Empowerment).

Both workshops take place on 16 June, Cloud Computing starts at 9 Washington time, Women’s Empowerment at 13:30 Washington time. You can register for the webcast on the eDevelopment events page.

So once again:

What: eDevelopment Thematic Group workshop on Cloud Computing and Gender Issues

Where: Washington DC, also available via webcast

When: 16 June, 15:00 Vienna time

ICT4D.at will of course cover both events on Twitter and here on the blog.

Just a short announcement of a new upcoming event:

The World Bank eDevelopment thematic group is holding a workshop on “Service Delivery & Electronic Identification (eID) – How National ID Cards and Other eID Applications can Improve Service Delivery” on 7 May from 8:00 to 13:30 Washington time (GMT-4).

In the context of e-government and ICT enables government transformation it deals with eID cards and other devices –

which are quickly becoming the preferred solution to ensure that government benefits are reaching the right people in a secure and cost effective manner.

The agenda with the schedule and speakers is online, there will be examples presented how eID solutions were already rolled out in several countries.

Oleg Petrov, the coordinator of eDevelopment group wrote a blopost about the eID event.

So if you have time – check it out and register here for the live stream .