Archive for the ‘e-governance’ Category

Information Technology at Local Government Level Monday, November 29th, 2010

Local government is the closest government to people everywhere. And local governance can affect the quality of their lives most closely. Citizens will naturally be interested to know what is going on at their local council.

With modern information technology, it is comparatively easy to communicate all kinds of information to the public. Local councils can create a database of projects being handled by them, make it searchable in different ways and open the searchable database to the public. This is what St. Lucie city council is doing now as reported at St. Lucie County developments.

The online documents include maps, approvals, applications, amendments, reviews, conditions and reports. It involves entering thousands of documents going back to the early 1970s into a searchable database, and is expected to be completed by January 2011. The database is open to the public and is searchable by projects – all, approved or archived.

Councils typically receive inquiries about projects from local citizens. Such inquiries take up the time of not only the person who makes the inquiry but also the council staff who has to look up the information and respond to it. A searchable database as the one above can save time at both the ends.

The value of such projects can be enhanced by allowing local citizens to register with the website and keep a line of communication open.

Tags: , ,
Posted in e-governance, information technology | No Comments »

Environmental and Societal Roles of Information Technology Friday, November 26th, 2010

Information and Communication Technology has a much greater significance than simply as a productivity enhancing tool for business and industry.

Energy consumption has a major impact on our environment as energy generation using conventional methods adds to the carbon footprint. ICT has for example been used to make power grids smarter and minimize energy losses during transmission and end user points. Minimizing losses means that less energy needs to be generated to meet the same demand, thus reducing the environmental impact.

The ICT industry itself is becoming more energy efficient through campaigns such as the green computing initiative, in addition to helping other industries enhance their energy efficiency.

On the social front, ICT can enhance the effectiveness of social services delivery. For example, it can enable remote delivery of education and healthcare to rural and other areas that has not yet had benefited from economic development. It has already enhanced connectivity among people through social networking and by making mobile telephony available in areas where conventional telephony has not reached.

E-governance initiatives can also make it possible to deliver government services much more widely and even effectively.

Information and Communication Technology can thus benefit businesses, government and the civil society. It is in this context that the Global Information Technology Report (GITR) published by the World Economic Forum assumes significance. The report rates the countries of the world on how they have leveraged the potential of ICT for all round improvement.

The latest GITR should be available at GITR page of NetworkedReadiness website.

Tags: , ,
Posted in business transformation, e-governance, information technology, trends | No Comments »

What can Information Technology do for Development? Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

Information technology has the unique characteristic of being able to reach remote corners where other technology might not have reached. Many of these remote places, such as villages in developing countries of Africa might be quite undeveloped. Even such places can have the convenience of mobile telephony by setting up a few towers for wireless communication.

And countries like India have succeeded in bringing down the costs of cell phones and call charges to an extent that most people even in villages can afford it.

The issue is how to tap this phenomenon to bring development to the undeveloped areas. It should theoretically be possible to deliver education, healthcare, information and government services to every remote corner through wireless communications, supplemented with a minimum of local infrastructure.

For example, a recent news report from Bangladesh speaks of connecting all the 4501 unions – the lowest tier of local government – are now linked to the internet. The Union Information Centres will provide all government forms, public notifications and gazettes, birth and death registration information, passport and visa support, information on public examinations, new jobs, laws, health and agricultural, and disaster management among others.

Read the Coimbra Soft blog on using infotech for development in Africa.

Tags: ,
Posted in e-governance, education delivery, healthcare, information delivery, information technology | No Comments »

Government Website Excellence Example: Rhode Island Government Site Saturday, September 25th, 2010

RI.gov, Rhode Island’s official website, has won top awards in two national competitions. It has been ranked among the top ten in Center for Digital Government’s annual Best of Web (BOW) competition for the fourth year. It has also received the Outstanding Achievement in Web site development and design from the Interactive Media Awards(TM) for its professional website design.

The BOW award recognizes innovative Government Web portals. Sites are judged for their efficiency, economy and functionality for citizen access. A look at the RI website can show clearly what these attributes mean.

The IMA award is based on design, usability, innovation and compliance with standards. Very few entries in the competition could meet the high standards of judgment applied. Again, the RI website shows how excellent design and usability can help the intended user, the citizen interested in getting a fishing license or knowing about his or her tax refund status, for example.

The RI website is developed and maintained by Rhode Island Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the eGovernment firm NIC. By making the services available online, the Web initiative saves paper and contributes to the green cause, to which the government is committed seriously.

See the news release at BusinessWire.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in best practices, e-governance, information delivery, information technology | No Comments »

E-governance Initiatives in West Bengal, India Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

E-governance Initiatives in West Bengal, India

The Department of Information Technology, Government of India, had initiated setting up Common Service Centers (CSCs) all over the country as a key component of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). The aim is to provide high quality and cost effective voice, video and data even in remote rural areas of the country and to make government services available through these media. For example, people in the remote areas could now get different application forms and certificates over the Internet without having to travel to government offices located in distant towns and cities.

The remote service centers also allow people to pay utility bills for electricity, water and telephone without disrupting their day-t-day routines undertaking day-long travels. Areas proposed to be covered include healthcare including telemedicine, education, entertainment and other services.

Private sector and NGOs are encouraged to partner the government in this initiative. The Public Private Partnership model involves:
* Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs) who operate the CSCs in their villages,
* Service Center Agencies (SCAs) responsible for divisions consisting of 500 to 1000 CSCs and
* A State Designated Agency (SDA) identified by the State Government for managing the implementation the program across the state.

The SDA for the West Bengal state of India is now turning its focus to mobile phones to deliver services in the sectors of utilities, education, emission control and agriculture. The government is seeking the help of different universities in the state to develop cell phone chips and other hardware to achieve this goal.

Read the report at Sify.com.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in e-governance, information delivery, information technology | No Comments »

ITIL for Information Technology Service Management Sunday, September 5th, 2010

Technology changes fast in the field of IT and the requirements to be met by the IT function are extremely varied under the huge range of environments where it is used. In such a situation, familiarity with the constantly changing best practices is the best guarantee for successful use of IT.

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is an approach to the identification, planning, delivery and support of IT services to businesses. Over the 20 years it has been in existence, it has become the most widely adopted framework for IT Service Management (ITSM) in the world.

ITIL was born in UK as a government initiative aimed at providing some consistency in the processes for technology delivery and support in a distributed computing environment. The distributed environment led to inconsistent practices that can not only affect the efficiency of the basic business services but also the predictability of the service levels, a serious problem in governance.

A business service can be defined as providing some value to a customer. The service delivery can benefit by carefully analyzing things like:

* Who is the customer?
* What specific services are needed to meet the customer’s needs?
* What technology resources are available to provide these services?
* How can the service delivery be designed in a cost-effective manner in the light of available technology?
* …

Read fuller details about the ITIL initiative, which is in its third version now, by downloading the ITIL Basics book.

Tags: , ,
Posted in best practices, e-governance, information technology, trends | 4 Comments »

How the U.S. Government Plans to tap Cloud Computing for Better Governance Sunday, April 11th, 2010

The Chief Information Officer of U.S. President presented the government plans to leverage cloud computing for doing its business in a way that uses taxpayer dollars in a more responsible manner. Cloud computing is expected to deliver (i) economic gains, (ii) environmental benefits and (iii) greater ability to provide services on demand according to the CIO.

The CIO compared cloud computing to centralized water supply. Whereas in a bygone era every house had its own private well, these days households get their water by turning on the water tap. Each household can use just the quantity of water it needs, making the unused water available to others.

Similarly in cloud computing, computing resourcs are available on tap. Networks, servers, storage and application software all are on the Internet, available to those who need it. You save money because you don’t have to install everthing at your premises (and then underutilize the installed computing resources). Instead, you pay only for what you use of the shared computing resources.

Just like invididuals and prive businesses, governments can also benefit by tapping cloud computing technology. The U.S. government spent over $76 million for more than 10,000 systems to support more than 300 million Americans. Government data centers now exceed 1,100, more than double what it was a decade ago.

Much of the IT infrastructure is redundant and also leads to high consumption of energy, expected to exceed 12 billion kWh in 2011 if things do not change. Despite the heavy spending, skilled workers and vital funds are underutilized. The results are unimpressive.

Read the full remarks of the CIO at: Government Computer News website.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in cloud computing, e-governance, information technology | No Comments »

U.S. Government and Cloud Computing Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

The U.S. Chief Information Officer said the government wanted to put data such as health-care pricing information on the Web. Private companies like Microsoft, Google and Amazon are offering databases and programs through Web servers, helping users save on local storage.

By adopting the same strategy, US government can help save on U.S. storage needs and cut expenses. The government had spent over $500 billion in the past decade on data centers and other technology initiatives. This has led to duplication of stored data and applications, to huge increase in costs and to high consumption of energy.

The CIO of U.S. government is advocating cloud computing in government. Cloud refers to the Internet, and cloud computing involves moving data and applications from local user servers to Web servers managed by Web service providers. Google and Microsoft have introduced government-focused clouds to tap the potential market.

If the government embraces cloud computing it could signal that this option is a secure option, and more businesses could opt for the solution. Global spending on cloud computing is expected to top $44 billion in 2013, according to IDC.

Cloud computing can also help government employees to collaborate better and be more productive, and lead to dramatically reduced government costs.

Read about the initiatives at BusinessWeek.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in cloud computing, e-governance, information technology | No Comments »