According to the event's organisers, a total of 357 applications for the Awards were received with 65 invited to the Awards exhibition.
The Awards, which have been organised by the European Institute for Public Administration and are backed by the European Commission, have been broken into three "themes" (categories) with Ireland having a representative in each area.
The Revenue Commissoners' Revenue On-Line Service (ROS) features in the "role of eGovernment in European competitiveness" category. The much-lauded ROS service allows citizens and businesses to file and pay their taxes over the Internet. The ease-of-use of ROS and the subsequent take-up of the service has been cited in numerous European reports on e-government in Ireland, helping Ireland top several EU e-government rankings.
In the "a better life for European citizens" group, the General Register Office (GRO), which is the central civil repository for records relating to births, deaths and marriages in the Republic of Ireland, has been recognised for e-enabling life event data. It is anticipated that the GRO will shortly launch a system that will allow the public to register births, deaths and marriages over the Internet.
In the third category, "European, central and local government eCooperation", Reach's efforts in implementing a messaging infrastructure for intra-government cooperation have been acknowledged.
Reach is set to introduce its Inter-Agency Messaging Service (IAMS) next month. The system will initially allow the exchange of life event information between the GRO, and the Department of Social and Family Affairs' Client Identity Services Section (CIS), and between the GRO and the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
The organisers of the awards were at pains to stress that being exhibited does not necessarily mean that an organisation is on the shortlist for an Award. They said that the purpose of the exhibition is to allow applicants to demonstrate successful implementations to their peers.
However, being chosen to exhibit is quite an achievement in itself given the high level of entries and it is likely that exhibitors will at least be considered for a possible prize. Independent experts will evaluate and rank the projects.
The eEurope Awards are part of the eEurope initiative announced by Erkki Liikanen, European Commissioner for Enterprise and the Information Society. They are expected to initially run from 2003 to 2005.
Part of the eEurope Awards is dedicated to e-health initiatives and the North Western Health Board was invited to exhibit its mobile computing project at the 2003 eHealth Awards, which took place in conjunction with a major European e-health conference on Thursday and Friday.
The health boards' initiative has seen several of its public health nurses being equipped with mobile devices. This, according to the health board, enables them to quickly access patient information when making house calls and gives it an up-to-date picture of the health needs of the community.
The North Western Health Board unfortunately failed to pick up an award.
Quelle: electricnews
