Modernisation of Administration in Smart Cities

Berlin, 16 June, 2010. Information technology and e-Government are important impulse generators for digital modernisation in private enterprises, public administration and politics. New ways of providing services, new governance possibilities with the use of IT and new solutions for intermunicipal cooperation, but also new modes of communication for citizens describe the way towards an integrated, cooperative and networked government and administration – especially in times of considerable cost pressure. These transformation strategies were introduced and analysed by international experts at the first Berlin EU conference for the “Application of Information Technology and Transformation of Government in Europe”.

The conference was held at Berlin's City Hall between 7 and 9 June, 2010, and was organised by the inter-trade organisation Vitako in cooperation with the network of “Major Cities of Europe IT User Group” and the capital city of Berlin. The three-day event was supported by IBM, Deutsche Post and Microsoft, who added lectures dealing with innovative programmatic IT topics to the conference.

Almost 200 participants from Germany, Europe and Overseas, among them members of Germany's Federal Ministry of Inner Affairs and of the EU commission, discussed 35 trend-setting lectures. The variety of topics included the “Smart City”, German and European best-practice examples in e-Government as well as the acceptance of these solutions by citizens and the use of the Web 2.0. A lot of attention was given to cooperative networks and Shared IT services that will have increasing importance in public administration and with IT service providers.

Vitako's new Chairperson of the Board Peter Kühne stated that „To recognize the impulse-giving power of IT and e-Government and to estimate the possibilities for one's own municipality is a standard requirement for politics and leaders. They have to make and sustain decisions so that experts from organisations, public administrations, and IT can together work out the best solutions for a administration reform based on IT“. For Kühne the biggest challenge for municipal IT providers lies in arranging the large investment of modernisation with the customers' high cost pressure.

Prime examples for the successful application of IT and e-Government topics were introduced by Berlin, Barcelona, Uppsala and Venice. These cities have significantly advanced the integration of administration, politics and citizens with innovative IT solutions. In her lecture Anne K. Altman, general manager in IBM's Global Public Sector, described the visionary concept of “Smart Cities“ as an “instrumented, interconnected and intelligent” way of meeting the challenges of cities when it comes to traffic, logistics, security and ecology. Gérard Sanutucci, department head of Integrated Enterprises and RFID with the EU commission, announced that the „Internet of Things“, technologies as RFID and the new IPv6 internet protocol would lead to a technological breakthrough in the future and enable totally new applications and smart services.

The conference showed a predilection for reform by cities but also the big challenges that especially the municipalities must face. Conference members felt a need for further discussion of reform approaches and of trend-setting concepts. The conference offered inspirational first impulses on such issues.

Vitako is the federal association of Germany's municipal IT service providers. More than 50 data processing centres, software enterprises and service providers with 7000 employees in 14 federal states concentrate their know-how in this association with legal capacity and make it available to the municipalities. Vitako advises and supports the municipal head organisations as they carry out their tasks in various questions concerning information and communication technology. Its participating enterprises are in charge of more than 500.000 IT jobs in more than 10.000 municipalities with a total yearly turnover of about one billion Euro.

Vitako Bundes-Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Kommunalen IT-Dienstleister e.V. Pressesprecherin: Dr. Marianne Wulff
Markgrafenstraße 22
D-10117 Berlin
Tel.: 030 2063156-11
Fax.: 030 2063156-22
E-Mail: presse@vitako.de -
www.vitako.de

This release was published on openPR.