IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Smart Cities are the strategic focus of an imperative need: to orient urban life and culture towards sustainability. Perhaps the perfect city does not exist. But the belief that has been installed among political, business and social leaders – emphasized from the World Economic Forum (WEF) – is that it is necessary to tend towards perfection; towards the challenge of conceiving and designing smart capitals. Because, as they recall from the OECD, if drastic measures are not taken, economic and demographic growth will have an unprecedented environmental and social impact. Given that the majority of the population will be concentrated in large cities, it is essential to overcome the challenge of the more than 2 billion additional inhabitants by 2050. The economic recovery, in the heat of the vaccination campaigns against Covid-19, have revived the dynamics of cities, explains The Economist. Very especially, that of the great capitals of the industrialized powers. In which the demands for services, lines of business and the sale and rental of real estate proliferate again. “The boost in the GDP of these nations goes hand in hand with the rebirth of their main urban centers”, in which the regeneration of employment “starts to boil” at a good pace.

Cities are rapidly evolving from passive infrastructure into intelligent, adaptive systems. This shift from “smart” to “thinking” cities could redefine governance, opportunity, and daily life

• Cities are evolving into intelligent systems that learn and act autonomously, reshaping mobility, energy, health, and infrastructure.
• Urban AI raises risks related to governance, privacy, inequality, and resource use, making strong oversight and inclusion essential.
• Nations must invest in talent, environmental safeguards, and innovation to ensure intelligent cities expand opportunity rather than concentrate power.

Factors such as green infrastructure, tech infrastructure, job opportunities and connectivity were assessed – and the same French city steals the crown

What makes a city ‘smart’, and which ones are best prepared for the future? It’s a big question, but thanks to this recently refreshed index, we’ve now got an idea.

According to ProptechOS, a ‘smart’ city scores well on 17 different factors, which all fall under three main categories: tech infrastructure and connectivity, green infrastructure and sustainability, and the tech job market.

Countries in the European Union (EU) must enact policies designed to better help workers adapt to new jobs being created by the internet if they want to avoid increasing inequality and exclusion in the region, notes a new World Bank Report. According to Reaping Digital Dividends: Leveraging the Internet for Development in Europe and Central Asia, launched in Bucharest Tuesday, affordable and nearly universal access to the internet has not been enough for countries in the EU to fully benefit from opportunities being created by digital technologies and more needs to be done to develop a policy environment that can better leverage this access by linking workers to digital jobs.

“Interoperability is currently the hot topic in e-government,” notes Themis Tambouris, the project manager of the IST programme-funded project EU-PUBLI.com. “With our system a public administration would be able to integrate its services with those of other providers operating in other fields and in other countries securely over the Internet.”

From today's simple radio tags to tomorrow's intelligent and networked systems, RFID applications will create many opportunities for business and society.

The electronic version of the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) is being driven forward by the European Commission. The introduction of the EHIC some years ago facilitated cross-border reimbursement of healthcare services considerably. But the paper version of the EHIC does have limits: ‘Hospitals do not know if a person with an EHIC is really covered by an insurance company, because it might have expired already,’ says Noel Nader of GIE Sesam-Vitale in France.

"The new The TRAde Control and Expert System (TRACES) database will facilitate tracking the 50 000 animals transported in the EU each day,” said David Byrne, EU commissioner for health and consumer protection. “ This is a major innovation and will help in case of an outbreak of an animal disease like foot and mouth disease.”

The internet and digital technologies are already transforming the EU member states’ knowledge and operation systems. During last five years the turn has come to science, research and innovation with a new concept of free access to all kind of research (called “open access”). The Baltic States science community has to take this challenge seriously.

Most states in Europe, as well as in the world, are witnessing a serious increase both in the amount of science information produced and research data for use in social development. There are already billions of managed data in digital devices and services for personal and professional needs, as well as data through the science digitized literature.

The large scale pilot, European patient Smart Open Services (epSOS), is scheduled to run for three years. It is similar to efforts in the United States to create a nationwide health information network.

Two-thirds of Europe’s public sector services are now available online, according to the latest research by Capgemini.

Through its annual eGovernment Benchmark report, Capgemini aims to investigate how well governments across Europe are digitising their services.

The UK is performing above the European average in terms of broadband coverage, adoption and use, but the European Commission (EC) has warned that despite being on track to meet the majority of its digital targets by 2015, more must be done to connect rural areas, SMBs and eGovernment services across the continent.

According to the EU 2014 Digital Scorecard, the EC is on track to complete 95 of its 101 targets and says there has been an increase in Internet use, online shopping and overall ICT skills and confidence.

The UK has become bottom in a survey of take-up of eGovernment services by businesses across the 25 EU Member States.

Less than a third of businesses in the UK used basic eGovernment services compared to the European average of 45 per cent and 90 per cent in Sweden, according to new research from the European Commission.

In total, Europe will spend €87bn on public sector IT over the next year, and by 2007, this figure will have risen to €94bn, according to research outfit, Kable. This represents just under one per cent (0.8 per cent) of the gross domestic product of the EU's member states.

The UK remains well behind the leaders in Europe’s e-government league, according to the latest benchmarking exercise by global consultancy Capgemini.

It has given Britain an overall score 61% against ratings above 80% for the leading pack of Estonia, Austria, Latvia, Malta and Lithuania.

New benchmark report for European Commission shows shortcomings in electronic identification and transparency of service delivery

The UK is behind the leading European countries in its digitisation of public services, according to a new report by global business consultancy Capgemini.

The surge in public sector deals across the consultancy industry has delivered positive results, making the UK among the best in Europe at providing public services online.