In Kathy Garcia’s world, voting by mobile device is a given.
The two-thirds of people in the 18- to 24-year-old sector who didn’t vote in the last federal election would have been right there, iPhones in hand, pointing to their candidate of choice on their touch screens and the election would potentially have had a different outcome.
Garcia, global senior vice-president of applications and business services for HP Enterprise Services, is a recognized leader in information technology.
She has brought her vision of the “instant-on” world to enterprises and governments around the world.
However, response to Garcia’s big ideas at Canada’s Government Technology Event (GTEC2011) at the Ottawa Convention Centre appeared lukewarm.
A couple of delegates questioned the potential for security disasters, or the Canadian government’s capacity to handle the burgeoning demands of citizens, especially in rural areas.
Garcia, though, seemed unruffled.
HP Enterprise Services has its own separate organization to address issues of security and Garcia understands the challenges that can delay adoption of innovative technology.
“It will take some time,” she told conference delegates Wednesday morning.
“It depends on the government and the situation. It’s not going to happen overnight or in the next few years.”
While she said she recognized the double-edged sword facing the public service, because of citizen’s expectations for instant service and the extent of the “connected” world in which we live, as well as such challenges as an aging population and growing security threats, she emphasized the need to give serious thought to new, “enabling” business models.
If an organization or government agency is to embrace mobility, cloud computing, analytics and other innovative technologies, it must use them to encourage participation and learn to respond quicker to citizens’ demands, improve processes to reduce costs and achieve better returns on investment, all the while managing security risks.
“Having the technology means nothing if you can’t utilize it through new business models,” she noted. “The focus is on prevention rather than curing. Government often focuses on the cure.”
Garcia has seen for herself the benefits of e-government in Flanders, Belgium, which set up an “instant-on service” for its citizens called the MAGDA platform. Obtaining building permits has been digitalized, and paperwork has greatly decreased.
“The younger generation will see this as the normal way to work and demand it,” Garcia warned.
HP Enterprise Services has also brought its “instant-on” model to school boards, military organizations and other public sector organizations. Garcia sees an infinite world of potential for innovative technology, from sharing immunization data through cloud computing and outfitting bridges with sensors to warn of collapse to wrist watches that manage chronic disease and virtual operation centres that concentrate emergency services.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Susan Hickman
Quelle/Source: Ottawa Citizen, 19.10.2011
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