issue7, October 2007
Editorial

Whatever one can say about intellectualism as the devotion to the exercise of intellect, it seems that nowadays we face a growing wave of anti-intellectualism.

Recently we launched two projects with Francesco, Co-editor of Ariadne, both related with e-participation and e-democracy. Besides our commitment in meeting the goals of the projects, we were both personally interested in the study of the patterns of uptake and adoption by the citizens and the communities themselves. It is early to express a final opinion, but my feeling is that in the same way that we talk about orchestration and choreography of software or business processes, there is need to research issues of choreography and orchestration in the social and inter-personal processes of the people involved in tasks and activities at all levels.  >>

Adamantios Koumpis
You may contact Adamantios at: akou@altec.gr
Editorial
The 100 € e-Gov portal
What is it about?
Who shall use it?
How does it work?
Application areas and possible usage patterns
• Case 1
• Case 2
• Case 3
Conclusions
Worth to read
Worth to visit …
Corruption!
 
The 100 € e-Gov portal
The 100 € e-Gov portal is an initiative that is lead by ALTEC Research, as part of work carried out in the European IST Project OneStopGov (http://www.onestopgov-project.org).

It follows the logic of the 100 $ laptop and builds on experiences and lessons of the latter to improve the situation in the addressed field.

More specifically we promote the idea of a truly low cost and generic e-Government solution that will be open for download as an integrated product and service suite that can be purchased and used for free or with an extreme low cost (similar to the 100 dollar laptop) so that some basic costs for running the promotional campaign can be subsidised.

The successful realisation of our vision, depends not only on marketing a cheap product, but also on ensuring that the process of its adaptation by the potential deployment parties will stay on affortable levels.
Motivation and background for our idea
Motivation and background for our idea What is the notion of wealth in a society? Or in a country? Or in a company and any other form of an organization? An increasing number of people give more emphasis to the immaterial (‘intangible‘) assets and not to the physical ones. Knowledge is considered as the steam engine for growth.

However, in many cases we tend to think that growth in a less developed (according to the principles of development of our Western society according to which North American and North European countries and economies are well developed) country or in a problem region follows different paths and may be described with different curves than in developed ones. >>
An elevator pitch for the 100 Euros portal
What is it about? >>

Who shall use it? >>

How does it work? >>
Application areas and possible usage patterns
• Case 1: A Nigerian small village community portal >>
• Case 2: A Ukranian rural area community portal >>
• Case 3: Battle against trafficking >>

Conclusions
Below we summarise in bullets the main outcomes of the 100€ e-Gov portal profiling process as this has been shaped after the discussions within our group, the OneStopGov consortium and the interactions we had through the organised workshops. >>
 

Corruption!
Corruption has become an issue of major political and economic significance in recent years and the necessity to take measures against it has become evident. The OECD has assumed a leading role in preventing international bribery and corruption. In this context, the OECD Public Governance and Territorial Development Directorate looks at the "demand" side of public sector corruption and helps countries find ways to create a public sector environment that promotes integrity.  Worth to read >>

 Worth to visit ... >>
Last June took place in Paris a Special Session on Lobbying: Enhancing Transparency and Accountability.

Also, a book was published last May on the issue of Integrity in public procurement: Good practice from A to Z.

Finally, and given developments internationally, it is worth to read the following report “Ethics or Corruption - Building a Landscape for Ethics Training in Southeastern Europe”. Though it dates back to 2004, much of the content is extremely timely – or should we rather say diachronic? (An excerpt: “A poll in Arizona showed that 71 per cent of respondents believed that lawmakers would accept bribes if they were offered”… I suppose the same holds for every corner of our planet...)
 
Impressum

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