Each year, as part of Deloitte and Telecities' "eCitizenship for All" initiative, an independent jury of Europe's leading eGovernment scholars selects projects that demonstrate real "citizen advantage" across one or more of the following areas: 1) eLearning and inclusion; 2) eDemocracy and community building; 3) eSecurity; or, 4) Re-engineering of local public administration. In recognition of their achievements, each of the winning cities is offered a free, stand-alone consultancy by a Deloitte member firm.
Whilst the 2004 final report will be presented at TeleCities eCitizenship for All Awards 2004 spring event in Tallin next year, the winners for 2004 include:
WINNERS
City of Barcelona (Spain)
Population - 1.641.656 - Mayor: Joan Clos
Category: Re-engineering – Barcelona Citizen’s folder (Carpeta del Ciudadano)
The Barcelona Citizen's Folder is a comprehensive and outstanding implementation of a user-centred personalized access to local government that combines ease of use with transparency. Not only it provides a single personalized entry to a portal, it also allows access to most of the data local government keeps about the citizen and provides easy entry to many online services. The Jury also wishes to praise the City of Barcelona’s overall commitment to providing e-services to all its customers through other project, for instance, the OMAIIAA project dealing with the reengineering of the many different control processes involved in providing a municipal licence for the opening of commercial establishments.
Category: eLearning and Inclusion – Porta22
Porta 22 is an excellent example of an information-society service that encompasses e-Learning and e-Inclusion simultaneously. Porta 22 has created a truly imaginative and valuable physical/virtual environment integrating information, knowledge, training, seminars, exhibitions, personalised advice, etc, etc., in order to facilitate the growth of employment in the new professions of the information society. It is an effort that points towards future more structured and focused knowledge services for all citizens in the information society.
City of Bologna (Italy)
Population - 469.639 - Mayor - Sergio Cofferati
Category: eDemocracy – Iperbole Civic Network
The Iperbole Civic Network is a project that has shown continuous innovativeness and enthusiasm since the mid-1990s when it was launched. Its continuous development shows a serious attempt to make it a 'sustainable' part of the infrastructure of local democracy in the City of Bologna. The long-term perspective and commitment taken by the Iperbole Civic Network is of the highest relevance for initiatives aimed at such broad and challenging arenas such as e-democracy.
City of Stockholm (Sweden)
Population – approx. 760,000 - Mayor - Annika Billström
eCategory: Security – Biometric log-on for students and teachers
Project "Biometric Log-on for Students and Teachers" has an impressive record of practical success in the difficult and multifaceted area of e-Security after already running for three years with approximately 4000 users. Using fingerprints instead of passwords not only makes access easier for users but also reduces the administrative burdens of changing passwords, retrieving forgotten passwords, etc. In addition, the jury wishes to praise Stockholm's integral approach that has also focused on staff training to "Increase Awareness of ICT Security", underscoring the fact that security is not only a technical issue but depends largely on the motivation and understanding of the people concerned.
Category: eSecurity – Increasing awareness of ICT security
The objective is to create and increase the understanding of the importance of ICT security among the employees and civil servants of the City of Stockholm.
In order to tackle the problems of eSecurity within the city administration and increase the knowledge and skills how to deal with eSecurity issues, the Education Department of the City of Stockholm in cooperation with six local boroughs developed an application that is now accessible for every employee through the city’s intranet. The application contains general information about ICT as well as specific chapters on eSecurity.
HONORARY MENTIONS
City of Espoo (Finland)
Population – 213,271 - Mayor - Marketta Kokkonen
Category: eDemocracy – Open Espoo
Open Espoo from the City of Espoo deserves special recognition for its outstanding richness, covering an exceptionally wide range of municipal activities and services within a systematic framework of e-democracy.
City of Copenhagen (Denmark)
Population - 500.531 - Mayor – Lars Engberg
Category: Re-engineering – Digital Self Service (Elektronisk Selvbetjening)
Today, the web portal Digital Self-Service integrates 32 online services for citizens and business such as children's enrolment in day care institutions or moving services. Forms and applications are prefilled with the information available. Digital signatures are used as well as PIN codes. And this is not all since the City is committed to extending the number of services and their back-office integration for the benefit of its citizens and business.
City of Liverpool (United Kingdom)
Population - 463.708 - Mayor - Mike Storey
Category: eLearning and Inclusion – i-Learn
i-Learn its an impressive e-Learning service that’s helping Liverpool City Council to improve the cost efficiency of training programmes while simultaneously empowering all 13,200 staff to advance with their personal development. I-Learn clearly addresses and satisfies the training needs of the civil servants of the city. 500 courses are now online with thousands of employees visiting the e-Learning resource at a high degree of satisfaction and savings.
City of Tranås (Sweden)
Population - 18.000 - Mayor - Monica Flodström
Category: eLearning and Inclusion – Traman-FTTH
Fibre optics is not commonly associated with e-Inclusion but project TRAMAN FTTH has succeeded in doing exactly this in the most unique way. It has involved all households in the community to do something normally left to big Telco companies, that is, helping to bring fiber optics connectivity into the home by helping with the digging and installation of the fiber. This highly collaborative effort is giving all Tranas’ inhabitants the opportunity of enjoying the benefits of fibre connectivity at a lower cost, while saving the Council an estimated one million Euros.
