ITU News talks to Mateusz Morawiecki, Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland.
Q: What is your vision for Poland’s digital future at the European level and beyond?
Poland is already among Europe’s fastest-developing countries and is rapidly bridging the digital divide.
Increased availability of e-services via our governmental portal (gov.pl) helped Polish citizens get through the time of isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, we have continued digitalizing more public services, making them accessible for all, especially for people with disabilities.
On Friday, at a press conference in the Rzeszów city hall, the completion of this investment, which was carried out by Asseco Data Systems, was announced.
As emphasized at the conference, Rzeszów is the first Polish city to introduce hybrid monitoring of the state of free parking spaces.
As Konrad Fijołek, the president of Rzeszów, said, the introduction of this system is a special moment for him.
Read more: PL: Rzeszow: Smart parking system, smart city component, now available
Paradigms of e-government are around the world are led by Estonia, whose size allows for experimentation and implementation of the most advanced and enviable systems in the world. Yet the tales of Estonia, may soon be surpassed by Poland, whose Digital rebirth is an ambitious project that will set the bar higher than anywhere in the world.
One of the leading minds behind this vision for a Digital Poland, has been Krzysztof Szubert, Strategic Advisor to the Minister of Digital Affairs and Plenipotentiary of the Minister for International Affairs.
Poznan just checked off several items on its Smart City list. On Monday, the Polish city launched a new application, that both keeps citizens informed about important events and facilitates their communication with the local authorities.
The Smart City Poznan app can signal anything from road perturbations and breakdowns to weather warnings, and smog reports. What is more, it enables users to report problems or submit suggestions with just a few clicks.
Read more: PL: Living in Poznan becomes easier with the new Smart City app
A report by the Supreme Audit Office (NIK) has found that local government in Poland is still heavily reliant on using paper to record information.
Only two of the 24 councils surveyed use mostly electronic documents.
“Almost all communes and city councils use a traditional [paper] system to manage documents. Only a few have implemented a system with mainly electronic documents […] Poland still has a lot to do to implement e-administration,” NIK concluded in its report.