ISSS 2005--international conference on informisation of public administration begins in Hradec Kralove

04/04/2005, 9:00

This morning the eighth annual Internet in Public Administration (ISSS) conference, the LORIS international conference and the V4DIS working meeting were opened in Hradec Kralove. The Aldis Congress Centre is once again the venue of the traditional meeting of representatives of state agencies, public administration subjects, politicians, experts and suppliers of information and communication technologies. As is customary, the conference participants include a number of high-ranking Czech politicians, as well as guests from the European Commission and ministers and government delegations from many European states.

"The extraordinary interest in the conference on the part of representatives of public administration and state agencies goes to show that e-Government and information-society issues are still perceived as an extremely important topic," says Tomas Rencin, the conference director. "This year, we want to deal with such key areas as portals, e-registries, development of electronic services for citizens, geographic information systems, data sharing within public administration, the role of ICT in the tourism industry and security questions. At the same time, we will focus on improvement of public administration's effectiveness and as rapid as possible introduction of the prepared solutions into current practice."

As in previous years, the ISSS/LORIS/V4DIS 2005 conference will be attended by a host of politicians from both the Czech Republic and abroad. The auspices of the eighth conference have been assumed by Prime Minister Stanislav Gross and Minister of Informatics Vladimir Mlynar. Participating in the event will be a number of other ministers and members of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament and Senate of the Czech Republic, as well as the majority of regional administrators, lord mayors of cities and mayors. Besides the Ministry of Informatics, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Regional Development are the conference's specialist partners.

The distinct international dimension of the event, an integral part of which is the traditional international LORIS conference and, for the second time, the working meeting of Visegrad Four countries, V4DIS (Developing Information Society in V4 Countries), is also highlighted by the attendance of many foreign guests. As usual, present in Hradec Kralove are several representatives of the European Commission, this year headed by European Commissioner Vladimir Spidla, as well as ministers and delegations from many European countries. Within the eighth ISSS, from Friday, April 1 a session of the Steering Committee of the Global Cities Dialogue with the participation of guests from all over the world took place in Prague.

The ISSS conference has traditionally been the venue for the announcement of the results of prestigious competitions and the handing over of awards pertaining to informatics. Perhaps the most important in terms of the number of competitors is the Golden Crest--a competition for the best websites and electronic services of towns and municipalities. Winners of regional rounds have progressed to the nationwide final whose results will be announced within the programme of the ISSS/LORIS/V4DIS social evening on Monday, April 4. Newly announced this year was the "Special Prize of the Minister of Regional Development" for the best tourism presentation on websites.

Other awards will also be handed over during the course of the conference--Cesky zavinac (@ Czech), Biblioweb, Geoapplication of the Year and EuroCrest for European cities. Vladimir Mlynar will also award the Prize of the Minister of Informatics of the Czech Republic.

"According to a recently published survey of the European Commission concerning accessibility of public services via the internet, the Czech Republic ranks 19^th among the 25 EU countries," Tomas Rencin points out. "On the one hand, this is not as good a result as we would like, but, on the other, the European Commission was surprised by the fact that the difference between new member states and the original 15 was smaller than expected. I sincerely hope that this year's ISSS conference will go some way to improving this evaluation."

Last year's conference was attended by almost 2,000 domestic and foreign guests, the programme comprised 230 lectures, and approximately 100 companies presented themselves within the accompanying exhibition. The ISSS conference has annually confirmed its unique position among specialist events pertaining to ICT in the region of Central and Eastern Europe.

More information about the ISSS/LORIS/V4DIS 2005 conference, as well as previous events, including a detailed programme and a host of other items of interest, can be found on www.isss.cz.

Further information: Prokop Konopa, Public Relations ISSS, tel.: +420 603 472 333, e-mail: prokop.konopa@hauska.cz, konopa@isss.cz

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