IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The Minister of the Interior, Taulant Balla, during his two-day official visit to Abu Dhabi, signed the agreement for the development of the "Smart City" project in several cities of Albania.

This project aims to increase security in the community, protect life, private property, and monitor road traffic.

This will be realized through a comprehensive technological solution system.

Prime Minister Edi Rama attended the “Smart City Albania” event this Friday, a project that for the installation of over 5,000 smart cameras in 20 cities across Albania—from Tirana to Saranda, from Shkodra to Gjirokastër—as well as 3,000 body cameras to be worn by State Police officers.

During his speech, Rama spoke about the installation of this security system through intelligent cameras, which he said will place Albania at the highest level of technology, introducing advanced standards for monitoring city streets, schools, and other public spaces.

Like many other modern innovations, it seems that Smart City is coming to Albania not to solve problems, but simply to make them more contemporary. The European world, of which we want to become a part, solves similar problems with work, while we want to manage them with terminology. This is also happening with Smart City, or in Albanian translation “smart city”, which the Prime Minister of the country is presenting as a vigilant city: always with eyes open, to monitor its citizens.

This is not the first time he has spoken about this. When a murder took place at the airport roundabout, he said that, if bureaucratic procedures had not hindered the installation of Smart City, the murderers would have been caught in record time. While yesterday, it seems that he had overcome bureaucratic obstacles, he came out and explained that the State Police was being equipped with a “magic eye”. He did not talk about laws, standards and institutional reforms, but about real-time surveillance cameras.

The US-based International Virtual e-Hospital (IVeH) developed and built the National Telemedicine Center of Albania on the campus of the University Hospital Center 'Mother Theresa' (TUHC), as part of the Integrated Telemedicine and e-Health Program of Albania in partnership with USAID, the Albanian Ministry of Health, the United States Department of Defense's Office of Defense Cooperation and the US Army Corp of Engineers (USACE). The development of the telemedicine centre was achieved through the IVeH strategy Initiate Build Operate and Transfer (IBOT). In addition, there are five regional telemedicine centres in Kukes, Shkoder, Durres, Korce and Vlore which have been developed through the same partnership.

Dubbing 2008 as "the year of the digital age", Berisha pointed to the implementation of electronic information technology in three new projects as steps in the right direction.

The examples to follow, according to him, were the introduction of a criminal records register, internet access in secondary schools and the newly opened credit registry for Albania’s Central Bank.

Albania is working to establish its first National Telemedicine Centre through an USAID-funded project implemented by the International Virtual e-Hospital Foundation.

The programme, which was first established in Kosovo in 2002, is part of a telemedicine network being built in the Balkans. According to USAID, it is "based on the successful model of the Kosovo Telemedicine Programme".

The programme, which was first established in Kosovo in 2002, is part of a telemedicine network being built in the Balkans. According to USAID, it is "based on the successful model of the Kosovo Telemedicine Programme".

The project was presented at a briefing by deputy Prime Minister Gazmend Oketa, and is supported by the United Nations within the framework of its Millennium Development Goals.

The smart city initiative is set to cover 20 cities across Albania and will deliver community-wide benefits from reduced traffic and congestion to faster emergency response times

Presight, a leading global big data analytics company powered by AI, has signed a letter of engagement with the Albanian Ministry of Interior to implement a nation-wide AI-powered smart city project.

The project is set to digitize urban infrastructure, enhance traffic management, and modernize public services, and in doing so elevate Albania to be one of Europe’s leading adopters of artificial intelligence and smart nation infrastructure.

The signing ceremony was attended by Albanian Minister of Finance Ridvan Bode and the Austrian ambassador Florian Raunig in Tirana.

Bode said the project was part of Albania's e-government program that is funded by Austria under a bilateral agreement of financial cooperation signed on Dec. 7, 2010.

The University of Arizona, through the International Virtual e-Hospital Foundation founded and led by UA trauma surgeon Dr. Rifat Latifi, was awarded a $750,000 cooperative agreement from the U.S. Agency for International Development to establish a National Telemedicine Center in Albania.

This two-year project will establish a National Telemedicine Center at the Mother Teresa Hospital in Tirana, Albania, with the support of the Albania Ministry of Health and the University of Tirana Medical School.

The National Licensing Center (NLC) and National Registration Center (NRC) signed an accord that will allow existing NRC service windows to process business licenses, initially in Korça, Shkodër and Vlora.

According to the report, EPS users, businesses and contracting authorities evaluated the system as both effective and user-friendly, particularly in terms of savings in time and money, transparency and secure procedures. Yet internet service, particularly outside Tirana, remains an issue. The report was conducted with the support of the Millennium Challenge Corporation Albania Threshold Program II (MCCA2), administered by USAID.

Albania's Minister Bode, said that this loan will address three areas that are still problematic in the operation of government such as: full modernization of tax administration, modernizing the health system, and modernize the property registry system.

The cities will receive technical advice, ad hoc support, and advisory input to address the pressing challenges related to the ethical and digital rights aspects of their local digital strategies and projects.

Belgian capital Brussels, Dublin, Ireland, Sofia, in Bulgaria and Tirana, in Albania have been chosen to pilot the Digital Rights Governance Framework.

The framework focuses on the local safeguarding of human rights in the digital context of city governments.

Premier Berisha attended last week the opening ceremony of Albanian Telemedicine Center. Also present at the activity were U.S. Ambassador to Tirana, Alexander Arvizu, Minister of Health, Petrit Vasili, Director of ‘Mother Teresa’ University Hospital Center (QSUT), Saimir Ivziku, representatives of USAID, who have supported this project, physicians, etc.

Designated areas at the “Mother Teresa” University Hospital Center and three other major regional hospitals throughout the country are being renovated to house new telemedicine and e-health centers.

Following the ceremony, experts from Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute (SEI) will conduct a week-long workshop to help key GoA and non-governmental institutions understand cyber-security models, build skills to resist operational threats, and develop processes for managing cyber-security incidents.