IfG.CC - The Institute for eGovernment

This was confirmed in the European Commission’s annual report on e-Government services provided by the member States.

Few of emerging Europe’s countries feature in the 2019 IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking, with the globe’s top five remain unchanged (US, Singapore, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland).

Estonia ranked 29th, followed by Lithuania (30th) and Slovenia (32nd). Slovakia (47th), Croatia (51st) and Ukraine (60th) are the other countries in the emerging Europe region to feature.

In February 2015, the European Commission's Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) ranked Denmark, Sweden and Finland at first, second and fourth place respectively in a list of the European Union's most digital nations, based on 2013 and 2014 data.

Only the Netherlands could foil a Nordic 1, 2, 3 atop the list – and, as Norway and Iceland are not in the European Union (EU), they didn't feature.

The reports states that GCC states in particular 'have sharply improved their overall performance' and continued to make investments in the ICT sector in a bid to diversify their economies.

Qatar is the highest ranked GCC state coming in the 23rd position globally, ahead of UAE (25th), Bahrain (29th) and Saudi Arabia (31st).

• The Kingdom beat France, Indonesia and China to claim top spot among the G20 member states
• Elsewhere in the Middle East, Iran and Lebanon dropped significantly

Saudi Arabia has been ranked first among 140 nations for its digital competitiveness as it invests heavily in the technology sector.

The survey evaluated websites of municipalities worldwide in terms of privacy, usability, content, services, and citizen and social engagement, and ranked the cities on a global scale. Co-sponsored by the Public Technology Institute, the study listed the following cities among the top 5 in digital governance: Seoul, Toronto, Madrid, Prague, and Hong Kong.

Singapore is the smartest Asian city and the seventh smartest in the world, according to the 2023 Smart City Index.

Published by Swiss business school Institute for Management Development (IMD) on Tuesday, the index ranks 141 cities by how they use technology to address the challenges they face to achieve a higher quality of life.

Singapore, Helsinki and Zurich are the world’s smartest cities, according to an index published on Sept 17 amid a growing debate on the future of urban design for a post-Covid era.

From smart traffic cameras and car sharing apps to pollution monitoring and free WiFi for all, cities around the world are racing to embrace technology, but researchers said the real test was whether citizens felt the benefits.

Living in a city where digital innovation and technology are used to drive sustainability and liveability is a dream for many people. Such urban settlements are called "smart cities". A recent survey showed that Singapore has been the best example of such an innovative city for the past two years.

For several years, Singapore has invested in innovations designed to increase the use of electric and autonomous vehicles. The city has also given access to its inhabitants to data such as city noise levels, levels of air humidity and parking spots available... With such initiatives common for its inhabitants, the city-state remains the smartest city worldwide for the second year in a row in a recent ranking.

Smart cities around the world are developing initiatives and adopting innovative smart technologies in a bid to make themselves both more sustainable and energy efficient while, at the same time, providing ever more sophisticated technological solutions to address the multiple issues confronting modern cities.

According to figures from the United Nations upwards of 70 per cent of the world’s population will be living in cities by 2050 putting upward pressure on services that society has become dependent on and expects.

According to a Japanese e-government ranking survey, Estonia has the fifth best e-government system in the world.

The 2017 survey, compiled by the Waseda University Institute of e-Government in Japan, evaluates 10 main indicators and 35 subindicators.

In Estonia’s case, the report notes most of the indicators are above average among OECD countries, except for the use of emerging technologies for government. This indicator evaluates the use of cloud computing, big data and the Internet of Things.

The rankings were the results of a survey conducted by Japan's Waseda University recently. The commission said that Taiwan shared the eighth place with Denmark, with a score of 83.52.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states rank differently and somewhat distantly from each other when it comes to information and communication technologies (ICT). Certainly, this tendency partly reflects the way member states address opportunities and challenges.

This phenomenon is evidenced in the recently released The Global Information Technology Report 2013. The World Economic Forum (WEF) issues the annual report in partnership with INSEAD, a premier business school.

Thailand slipped one place to 40th in the World Digital Competitiveness Index 2019, partly because of a lack of public access to digital public services and subpar participation in public decision-making.

The rankings, which cover 63 countries, were released on Thursday. The index was commissioned by the IMD World Competitiveness Center, a think tank under the IMD business school in Switzerland and Singapore.

Thailand saw a slight improvement in its competitiveness ranking, moving up from 28 last year to 27 this year, according to the IMD World Competitiveness Ranking 2017 released late Tuesday.

The top five economies of the 63 rated this year are: Hong Kong, Switzerland, Singapore, the United States and Netherlands.

Ever wondered about tomorrow’s cities? Smart cities may seem like a futuristic concept, a far-off vision of utopia where technology elevates every aspect of life. But the future is closer than you think. As Josh Gordon, a renowned Geonode expert, exclaims, “The cities of the future are not in our imagination, they are right here in the present!”

Let’s navigate the future that is already present in these top 10 smart cities across the globe. These cities leverage technology to the fullest in managing urban services, ensuring a sustainable and enhanced quality of life for the residents, aligning with the vision of living in 2050.

It was revealed by a new comparative report by Accenture that Singapore, Norway and the UAE rank first, second and third, respectively, among 10 countries in their use of “digital government.”

Emirates ranking jumped one place to 17th globally

The UAE’s global ranking in digital competitiveness continued to improve as it secured the 17th position in IMD World Digital Competitiveness 2018 report.

The region’s second biggest economy also maintained its lead in the Middle East chiefly due to Dubai’s strong push towards digitisation and embracing new technologies to make the emirate a smart city.

NRI, which is published annually, measures the preparedness of an economy to use ICT to boost competitiveness and well-being and tracks the development of ICTs around the world.

The report assesses the digital ecosystems of 144 developed and developing countries — accounting for more than 98 per cent of the world’s GDP.