IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The winners of the eEurope Awards for Innovation in eGovernment received their prizes July 8th in Como, Italy, at the European Government Conference -- a top political event gathering over 30 ministers from a range of EU countries including Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. EC Enterprise and Information Society Commissioner Erkki Liikanen presented the awards in three categories:

• The role of egovernment for European competitiveness
• A better life for European citizens
• European, central and local government e-cooperation and public eservices.

Out of 350 applicants, 65 were selected finalists, three projects were top winners and another five received honourable mentions. The first category was won by the German project Bremen On Line Services - an integrated portal for e-government transactions, security and legally binding electronic signature, . The winner in the number two category was the Austrian "HELP" - online guide to authorities, offices and institutions, and the third award went to the Spanish project Tax Administration e-Services - electronic certificates provided by tax authorities.

Honourable mentions were given to the following projects:

• AMS - Swedish National Market Board - well-established integration of a wide set of job-related services.
• Special Citizens Web Portal - example of how to move to fully open and transparent government in Estonia.
• Three Islands Partnership (3IP) - supporting remote islands communities in the UK.
• Auto e-Counter - inter-agency collaboration in Italy.
• Inter-Agency Messaging Service (IAMS) - messaging service between various agencies in Ireland.

Commissioner Liikanen said: "I congratulate the winners and the runners-up for their excellent applications. These are an inspiration to us all. By showing so clearly what can already be done, such applications serve to redouble our political determination to thoroughly modernise the entire public sector of Europe. Everyone stands to benefit from more effective and more personalised services being offered by administrations."

Most competitive knowledge based society

The awards program is part of the ambitious goals of eEurope's plan to make Europe the most competitive knowledge based society in the world by 2010. The objective is to promote the exchange of best practices among EU member states and candidate countries in the field of egovernment and in other priority areas like ehealth and elearning, covered by the Europe Action Plan for 2005. The awards are meant to draw attention to exemplary practices in government and to provide platforms for public-sector innovators and help them disseminate their achievements.

The eEurope Awards are to be handed out four times during 2003 -2005. The eHealth Award was presented in Brussels last May. Next in line is the eLearning Award.

Summaries of all the Como finalists e-government can be found in the project catalogue.

Quelle: Center of Digital Government