Notes from the eDevelopment thematic Group seminar on the “Use of Free/Open Source Software in the Public Sector: Brazil Experience“.

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Introduction and welcoming speeches

Cem Dener (ECSPE), Deepak Bhatia (GICT), Samia Melhem (GICT), Oleg Petrov (e-Development Thematic Group), Mikhail Bunchuk (Moscow Office), Eduardo Calero

Country offices in Albania, Brazil, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, St. Vincent, St. Kitts

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Presentation
Mr. Eduardo Santos, Project Manager, Ministry of Planning, Brasilia - download presentation

FLOSS in Brazilian government

Regulations for free software in Brazil:

• specific branch in the government responsible for informatics and information policies
• different committees for FLOSS implementation, legacy systems, systems integration

A lot of internal struggle about the usage of free software, everybody thought they had the best policy

A lot of trouble with migrating, adapting, intergrating -> decision to create new software

Brazilian Public Software Portal

• sharing software solutions in the government

FLOSS community in Brazil claimed they were also allowed the source code of a product if they purchased it

Public Software Portal evolved

• companies used software and provided training for other organizations
• groups of interest emerged from the users of the software
• Community, companies, municipalities - all users are very important and have different needs -> it’s an ecosystem
• Now: Providing software solutions for society

Software is more than only software

• it’s a change in attitude
• it’s about innovation - more qualified people
• many economic opportunities
• savings of more than $ 3.750.000 just by sharing software

Applications

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As our partnership with the eDevelopment Thematic Group of the World Bank continues, we would like to announce a coming event: the eGovernment seminar on the use of FLOSS in the public sector. It will take place on 17 December in Washington and will be broadcasted live over webcast at http://wwwr.worldbank.org/edevelopment/live.

The event deals with free-/open-source software and its application in the public sector. Among others, the case of Brazil, which is one of the top-adopters of FOSS software in the public sector, will be discussed. The agenda so far can be found at the eTG event page.

What: eTG seminar: eGovernment Seminar on the Use of Free/Open Source Software in the Public Sector

Where: Washington DC, also available via webcast

When: 17 December, 9:00-12:00 Washington time

ICT4D.at will of course cover the event on Twitter and here on the blog.

Last Wednesday the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group held a workshop on “The Singapore Experience” - how the small country Singapore achieved the transformation to become economically that successful and one of the countries with the most government services accessible by mobile phone or internet.

The notes from the different speakers can be accessed under the following links:

• eTG workshop - The Singapore Experience - part 1
• eTG workshop - The Singapore Experience - part 2

The reason for the whole eTransformation was the desire to attract foreign investment on the one hand, and the will to foster public construction to provide public housing for the citizens. This led to improvements in regulations and the attempt in many sectors to hide the complexity of the government bureaucracy away from the individuals and companies, providing the services of many agencies on an online platform.

The speakers came mostly from the private sector, as Singapore managed its transformation mostly by forming public-private partnerships, with companies providing government services. These companies have gained a lot of experience now, and also consult other nations all over the world on their strategy to implement eServices.

One key aspect of Singapore’s eTransformation was the presence of a long term vision concerning ICT which was in place for 20 years already. The vision was created with changes in technology and administration processes in mind - so these changes didn’t render the vision useless, but were rather absorbed by it.

Another substantial point in Singapore’s eTransformation process was the persistent work with all stakeholders to have everybody on the “same page” of the process. The different agencies involved in the provided services were trained to implement ICT and to share data digitally.

All in all the event gave a complete and interesting insight into the development of the ICT strategy of Singapore and showcased a role model for other nations aiming to focus on the provision of eServices to their citizens. Also it was encouraging to hear about Singapore’s interests in helping and supporting other nations.

Notes from the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group workshop on “The Singapore Experience“ on 30 September in Washington DC.

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Sharing on Government Transformation by Crimsonlogic Pte Ltd

Topic: eGovernance to yield greater socio-economic impact

Speaker: Mr. TAN Sian Lip, Vice President

Public private partnership company

• built by Singapore government
• run as a private company
• providing government services

Singapore Trade Facilitation Journey

On the last 20 years

• Almost everybody in the trade-sector changed their technology
• Administrative roles changed in the last 20 years
• The public didn’t experience any change

Tradenet

• Harmonizing trade admission procedures for companies evolved
• “TradeNet -World’s First Nationwide Electronic Data Interchange System”
• Minimizing processing time for admission to 1 minute
• there exist 2 business case studies, it has been well documented
• many international partnerships, facilitating trade on ports worldwide

Singapore eJudiciary

LawNet

• Platform for processing legal information
• Keeping data digital
• Less hardcopies
• Higher clearance rate
• Cases take shorter time
• Transparency through online availability of cases
• good rating in international comparison

Lessons learnt - Principles of eGovernment

• The application of IT to transform the way governments work, to make them friendlier and more effective
• It is not (just) a large portfolio of technology projects
• It is a large ongoing program of activities involving public administrators and technologists in rethinking how government & the public can work together, and then applying technology to effect the changes

Infrastructure: e-things change all the time, there is always something better

• you should plan carefully so that changes don’t destroy your system, but can be absorbed

Constraints:

• There are never enough resources to design & build all possible eServices

It’s important to build the eServices which have the biggest impact on citizens and business

Partnerships between governments and private companies in developing and implementing services on a risk-and investment-sharing basis

Q & A:

Is there a legalframework for exchangig data online?

• electronic transactions act - very broad
• Computer misuse act
• In Singapore PKI is not so common
• Electronic banking has existed for years and transactions not signed with PKI

Is there competition for IDA in Singapore?

• yes, there is international competition, other companies are bidding for contracts too, but so far no success

Who selects what applications have the highest impact on citizens and businesses?

• The specific agencies decide what the governmental agenda should be
• Then they have to fight for the budget

Common components for eServices?

• Governance is primary
• Architecture is handmade into it
• Basic network, basic logging mechanism, web service gateways, portal infrastructure should be common

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Sharing on Government Transformation by NCS Pte Ltd

Topic: Effective Development – Why is there a need for Public Services Infrastructure (PSi)

Speaker: Mr. NG Beng Lim, General Manager

Company: NCS - national computer system

• providing government services

Key concerns in Singapore:

• economic growth
• education
• utilization of resources
• making society a better place
• how to use IT to promote these issues?

Areas to address:

• governance, administration
• services for citizens
• integrating IT into society
• better management of resources
• developing economy based on IT - in the long term

Every country has to have a clear masterplan what to do with IT

• But how to come from the masterplan to an implementation and successful rollout?

Transformation of IT during the 80s and 90s to today

• Nowadays the prerequisites for successful eServices rollout are ideal
• In early 2000 - government in Singapore started Public Services Infrastructure
• Interface for people to interact with the government
• open infrastructure to more providers - including the private sector

Public Services Infrastructure Components:

• Government Network
• Common Data Centre
• Application Infrastructure
• Common Desktop Services

Features:

• Single sign on
• SMS, email gateway
• personalisation
• service delivery framwork
• ePayment
• Orchestration
• multilingual

Results:

• PSi was started 10 years ago
• Today: SHINE (Service Wide Hosting Environment) by NCS
• Billing model: Subscription-based
• Evens out peak CPU utilisation
• SHINE: Hosting, services and storing on demand

NCS - in the mean time a lot of experience in eGovernment & National ICT Planning

Q & A:

Does the government have a centralised architecture?

• Yes, in Singapore the government came up with a centralized infrastructure

What about security standards?

• The IT infrastructure has to come with an own security framework already

Key objecticves in terms of consilidating the data?

• Make people use the system
• “Selling” tools to the ministries

Many agencies - one government. Government has to have the oversight, but agencies have to have the freedom to act on themselves.

Is there a trend for re-centralization?

• It’s technologically possible
• Is it possible to monitor all local spots where services are running?

Notes from the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group workshop on “The Singapore Experience“ on 30 September in Washington DC.

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Welcome Remarks by Mr. Deepak Bhatia, Lead ICT Policy Specialist, GICT and Ms. Angela PNG, Deputy Director of International Organisation, International Enterprise Singapore

Knowledge sharing event - how Singapore became a leader in eGovernment

Singapore ranked first in eGovernment ranking in four consecutive years, global competitiveness index: 3rd

One factor for that - policy to utilize ICTs in national development

A lot of problems to overcome - e.g. technophobia

Today: ICT masterplan, holistic

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Opening Remarks by Mr. Sun Vithespongse, Southeast Asia Executive Director and Mr. Mohsen Khalil, Director, Global ICT Department (TBC)

Singapore:

• small country with no resources
• therefore it has to be developed in ICTs to become efficient

World Bank group is the biggest sponsor in eGovernment - and has experiences large successes

World Bank should keep on the work, despite the financial crisis

Development in the industry

• a lot of innovation is happening in the developing world
• south-to-north and south-to-south developments

What can ICTs be useful for?

• Powerful transformation forces turning around the way we do business

The integral structure of of governement and important private sectors and their cooperation is very important

Harnessing the power of ICTs is a government and behavioural issue - rather than a technological issue

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Sharing on Government Transformation by IDA International

Topic: Singapore’s ICT Journey - The Past 30 years and the Next 5 years.

Speaker: Mr. YEONG Wee Tan, Deputy Director

ICT sector in Singapore

• 40 bn US$
• 140 000 IT professionals

Six national ICT plans

• Computerisation
• Communication
• Connectivity
• Convergence
• Connectedness
• Creation

It’s necessary to start a dialog on learned lessons - between Singapore and the other nations

A lot of working with foreign agencies

IDA International - Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore

• partnering with other governments, sharing lessons of Singapore and advising them
• not a vendor
• living their lessons
• helping to integrate ICTs

Sharing lessons on different levels

• Infrastructure
• Human capacity - The countries need to have sustainable human capital to carry on with their policies
• Industry and Government
• Governance - which legal framework is necessary
• Outcomes - What are the aims?

Within 15 minutes you can register a Singaporian company around the world

GrBiz - Government to Business open platform

We want to get people used to make everything “e”

• There are 200 government services available on a handheld in Singapore
• Also as a tourist you get all these services available
• A lot of learning devices for schools - “Future schools in Singapore” - to be on the forefront of development
• Also health care projects

Government must evolve to be an open ecosystem

Together with agencies like the World Bank we can teach also other countries how to integrate ICTs in their services and transform their operations

eTransformation can create a better world through ICT

Q & A:

Question about public trust - everything is digital now, do people trust in the system?

• Everybody has one number - took quite a while to harmonize that
• In the beginning of the journey there were problems, but in the mean time people have accepted it
• There is a lot of public consultation

Infrastructure is important but education too - how to talk to ministries trying to prioritize?

Cross agency information sharing?

• There always political trouble  - but the important point is communicate, communicate, communicate the overall goal to everbody
• It’s important to bring the stakeholders together and convince them

What motivates Singapore for international coperation? Typical cooperation between the agency and another country?

• One strategic plan in the Singapore ICT plan is internationalization
• It’s also an export industry, not everything for free - but not a typical consultor, we are there to help people get on the IT journey
• It’s important for us to give back to the world
• We act like a trusted adviser to the government

Do you have an administrative reform plans for the country and how is it linked to the ICT plan?

• Definitely, everything is balanced between administrative reforms, governments processes, … to have everybody on the same page, it’s still ongoing

Comments:

It’s very encouraging to see this international exchange, Singapore is currently working on a P2P portal for government transformation

Sometimes you need to break established ways of work and act outside the framework

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Sharing on Government Transformation by novaCITYNETS Pte Ltd

Topic: e-Transformation to a First World City

Speaker: Ms. Joyce WONG, EVP

Singapore in the 1960 had big problems - a developing country

• GDP per capita: 427$

Several measures to overcome the situation

• Public housing
• Attracting foreign investment - to create jobs

Making Singapore a good place for investment

• Infrastructure improvement - water, electricity, roads, …
• Well thought our master plan
• Constant reform
• Concept plan = blueprint
• Master plan = vision
• Construction = concrete measures
• Twenty years plan

A lot of construction activities

Many issues faced when dealing with construction permits from different agencies

Introduction of COREnet

• streamline and reengineer the processes in the construction industry
• e-submission system launched in 2001
• business re-engineering, project design, training, industry promotion, …
• Interface for businesses to interact with the government
• Variety of agencies are hidden behind the online portal - single point of access
• big success story, companies make use of it, big increase in efficiency

In 2009

• 16 participating agencies
• 700 application forms (2001) to 231
• 30% improvement in turnaround time

Information on eTransformation in Sri Lanka

• All building blocks for a strong eGovernment solution were not in place - when NCS came to rescue
• Trying to replicate the experience of Singapore - but adapt it to the situation in Sri Lanka

Once more our partner - the eDevelopment Thematic Group of the World Bank - will have a workshop in the context of their Government Transformation initiative.

It deals with Investing in Broadband Infrastructure as Part of Fiscal Stimulus Programs and the surrounding questions - what’s the reason for such investments, what are the outcomes and how can it be implemented. The case of Spain - which is also a big player in the ICT4D field due to my subjective judgement - will be presented.

Read a longer introduction at the event page.

The workshop will take place in Washington again, but also be broadcasted over the web.

What: Investing in Broadband Infrastructure for Economic Stimulus and Growth

Where: Washington DC, also available via webcast

When: 22 June, 15:00 Vienna time

ICT4D.at will of course cover the event on Twitter and here on the blog.

We want to announce a new event of our partner - the eDevelopment Thematic Group of the World Bank. This time there will be two workshops on one day: Financial Crisis and Cloud Computing: Delivering More for Less and ICTs for Women’s Empowerment.

Financial Crisis and Cloud Computing deals with the relatively new technology of cloud computing, which means to provide a service not on a physical machine but as a service over the web. Solutions like that are highly scalable and ideally available anywhere anytime.

In the context of the Government Transformation initiative of the eDevelopment group, there are several issues connected to eGovernment which will be addressed during the workshop - data security, data portability, requirements, supply, …

More information on the event page (Financial Crisis and Cloud Computing: Delivering More for Less).

ICTs for Women’s Empowerment deals with gender issues in ICT4D and usage of ICTs. Also the government’s and the World Bank’s role is taken a closer loook upon.

More information on the event page (ICTs for Women’s Empowerment).

Both workshops take place on 16 June, Cloud Computing starts at 9 Washington time, Women’s Empowerment at 13:30 Washington time. You can register for the webcast on the eDevelopment events page.

So once again:

What: eDevelopment Thematic Group workshop on Cloud Computing and Gender Issues

Where: Washington DC, also available via webcast

When: 16 June, 15:00 Vienna time

ICT4D.at will of course cover both events on Twitter and here on the blog.

Just a short announcement of a new upcoming event:

The World Bank eDevelopment thematic group is holding a workshop on “Service Delivery & Electronic Identification (eID) - How National ID Cards and Other eID Applications can Improve Service Delivery” on 7 May from 8:00 to 13:30 Washington time (GMT-4).

In the context of e-government and ICT enables government transformation it deals with eID cards and other devices -

which are quickly becoming the preferred solution to ensure that government benefits are reaching the right people in a secure and cost effective manner.

The agenda with the schedule and speakers is online, there will be examples presented how eID solutions were already rolled out in several countries.

Oleg Petrov, the coordinator of eDevelopment group wrote a blopost about the eID event.

So if you have time - check it out and register here for the live stream .

Notes from the OASIS/World Bank workshop on “Open Standards for Government Transformation: Enabling Transparency, Security and Interoperability” in Washington.

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Concluding Session: Concluding remarks from the Steering Committee

Chair: Wm.(Bill) Barnhill, Booz Allen Hamilton & Secretary, Steering Committee OASIS eGov Member Section

Randeep Sudan , Practice Leader for e-Government, Global ICT Department, World Bank

Very interesting sessions - trying to highlight the key takeaways:

• Open standards are important, interoperability is really important - but open standards should be viewed as part of a framwork, not isolated, long term stability is vital
• Importance of security- risk management framework is a vital approach, a structured way to look at security issues; there’s a whole range of stakeholders involved, all of them should be mentioned in the framework
• Cloud computing - new approaches, developing countries should start experimenting & using the cloud
• Suggestion - connect experts in the field to share experience

Notes from the OASIS/World Bank workshop on “Open Standards for Government Transformation: Enabling Transparency, Security and Interoperability” in Washington.

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Panel Three: Interoperability Frameworks

Chair: Bill Piatt, CIO, International Finance Corporation, The World Bank Group

Interoperability frameworks - the holy grail of IT

Some years ago - how to make all the information from all the agencies and projects visible - not to talk about interoperable?

All agencies of the Wold Bank handle similar but yet different info in similar but yet different ways

We try to actually make it = interoperability happen

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Power and Institutional Values: Interoperability as Politics

Speaker: Peter Lord, Director, Technology Policy, Oracle Corporation

Old model: information is power

• Interoperability can’t be “touched”, that’s why it’s not that desired - but still it’s important

New model: Interoperability is power

• Information alone is underleveraged
• It’s not about new information, it’s about being able to go on using old information
• It’s about enlarging the life of your investment
• New tools for analysis

Information is an asset, ICT systems are a commodity

Talking about interoperability frameworks = talking about control over assets in your IT environment

Real world: power of institutions

Legislation doesn’t like people taking control away from them

Old model: function follows form, new model: form follows function

Interoperability is not integration, it’s also not an end-state

Interoperability requires open standards

Interoperability models & frameworks already exist, it’s not necessary to reinvent them

It’s vital to involve various stakeholders from different areas

Whatever the trend of the moment is, an interoperability framework should be able to depict it

Conclusion:

• IT projects mostly fail not because of technology, but because of process reasons
• We need to build communities that have clear objectives and support
• You can start to gain advantages from interoperability frameworks at whatever stage of development your country is

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Interoperability and Cloud Computing

Speaker: Daniel Burton, Senior Vice President, Salesforce.com

100% computing center, providing computer power in the cloud

There’s a lot of standards

Wouldn’t it be great to run your operations on the internet and let someone else care for the standards?

Using all the services in the internet is possible without purchasing software or undergoing a training

Question: consumer platforms (Amazon, eBay, …) are intuitive, fast, … - why can’t business organizations have similar services?

Nowadays: applications and platforms are moving to the cloud - no software needed anymore

It’s not just consumers - industry, governments are also moving to the cloud

Characteristics of the cloud:

• Multi-tenant
• Pay-as-you-go
• Elastic
• No Capital Expense
• Modest Operating Expense
• Scales With Your Business

Client-server: complex infrastructure vs. cloud computing: no infrastructure

If you don’t have broadband access - cloud computing is not going to work for you

Security: “my data is somewhere else, how can I know it’s not being shared or hacked?”

• Only information with own tags is shown
• real time security

Reliability: very high

Transparent system status

Real-time integration of various applications

Salesforce offers an open API for interoperability

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Interoperability, Web and Mobile Applications: Opening the Door to Access and Sharing

Speaker: Kevin Novak, Vice President, Integrated Web Strategy and Technology, The American Institute of Architects (representing W3C)

Electronic Government work: started in 2008 - 30 different governments as members

Charta of the groups focuses on 3 areas:

• uses of web standards
• Transparency and Participation
• Seamless Integration of Data

So far

• A lot of collaboration with partners
• Dealing with existing standards
• Identifying gaps in these standards
• Use cases
• …

What is Interoperability in Government?

• ability of organizations, individuals, and agencies to share and exchange information via electronic means
• ability for agencies, different levels of government to share and exchange information with other organizations and individuals

Challenges:

• Proprietary systems
• no understanding for audiences & uses
• open standards

How Can Interoperability be Achieved?

• develop common standards & frameworks

Issues & limitations

• Privacy, security, legal aspects
• open standards, open source, openness & transparency
• semantics, culture

Benefits of interoperability:

• easier for the citizen
• few documentation
• fast communication
• automation

Next steps for the W3C Electronic Government Group:

• continue working with standard bodies
• maturing and developing issues
• validate existing use cases & develop new ones
• listen to the community

Q & A:

Q: In the past information was power - but today information is still power - but we’re trying to figure out how to get to it.

Q: Isn’t interoperability also exposing yourself to a security risk?

A: Each company has to make the decision themselves which information to put where.

A: Often solutions which are easily technologically feasible require months of negotiations with privacy concerns.

Q: What is the recomendation for governments: build their own cloud or stick to salesforce or google

Q: Do you have applications for hosting data for your customers?

A: Yes, the applications are already in the cloud.

A: You can also outsource your application to a cloud hosting service.

Q: What about jurisdiction in cloud computing? What if information is split over different nations?

Q: What is the recomendation for governments: build their own cloud or stick to salesforce or google?

A: We should start experimenting with cloud computing. Especially the governments should look at clouds.

A: To experiment it’s a good idea to start with something low risk.

A: One of the issues of developing countries as well is that internal development capacity is lost when the applications are outsourced. Salesforce & co can help you set up your own cloud and consult you. It’s an important questions how to transfer the knowledge to the own countries.

A: There needs to be more investment to bring ICTs to more countries of the world. It is absolutely critical to provide the “last mile” of internet access.

Bill Piatt: Everybody - in his personal as well as professional world - should think of how to use existing standards and how to build new standards.

At the end of the day our data plugs and plays same as our networks plug and play.

If we can make eletricity work around the world, we can also make all the applications interoperable