We cordially invite you to the Visegrad conference

16/02/2006 16:00

Between April 2 and 4, 2006, Prague and Hradec Kralove will for the third time host the Visegrad Four for Developing Information Society--V4DIS 2006 international conference within the well-known Internet in Public Administration/Local and Regional Information Society (ISSS/LORIS) conference. Partners of the "DIS-V4 2006: The Role of Municipalities and Regions in the Process of Development of eGovernment services, eTourism and Other Web Application for Citizens in V4 Countries" project, which is supported by the International Visegrad Fund and organised by the Cesky zavinac association, are the Association of Towns and Communities of Slovakia, the Union of Towns of Slovakia, the Hungarian National Association of Local Authorities (TÖOSZ) and Poland's Alfa Omega Foundation.

The auspices of the conference's third edition have been assumed by the Chairman of the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, Premysl Sobotka; the Czech Prime Minister, Jiri Paroubek; and the Minister of Informatics, Dana Berova. Participation in the conference's opening has also been confirmed by the EU Commissioner Vladimir Spidla. Delegations from individual Visegrad Four countries will consist of members of parliaments, representatives of state bodies and representatives of regions, towns and communities.

The programme's centre of gravity will be the issues of eGovernment and electronic services for citizens. Among the items on the agenda are: portal solutions, electronic registries, the internet as a tool for cooperation between V4 countries on the national, regional and local levels and, naturally, protection of information systems. This year's specific topics will include the use of ICT in tourism (eTourism), which was at the centre of attention at last year's conference too. Presented within this block will be the role of the V4 Portal when promoting destinations, national and regional tourism portals, the importance of internet promotion of a state as a tourist destination, the quality of information systems in tourism, and other issues. A complete novelty at this year's conference will be the theme of Gender Equality in eGovernance – the internet as a means of supporting equal opportunities. Within this conference block, scheduled to be opened by Vladimir Spidla and Dana Berova, there will also take place an international meeting of mayoresses from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland with the participation of the Czech female senators Liana Janackova and Jitka Seitlova, the Slovak MP Beata Brestenska and female experts from the coordination centre of the Association for Progressive Communications--Women's Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP) for Central and Eastern Europe.

An important role in comparison of best practices has in recent years been played by the EuroCrest international competition for the best website or electronic service of a town, community or region. The final, evaluation and awarding of the competition winners will take place within the Hradec Kralove ISSS/LORIS/V4DIS 2006 conference at a gala social evening on Monday, April 3. Nominated for this competition will be representatives through their associations of municipalities, as well as representatives of Visegrad countries, primarily according to their placement in national competitions such as the Golden Crest in the Czech Republic, the Golden Crest of Slovakia in the Slovak Republic and the Golden @ in Poland. This competitive form of practical exchange of experience with the creation and operation of internet pages has proved to be extremely motivating and inspiring. This year, one of the major evaluation criteria in EuroCrest will be the aspect of quality of tourism presentation of a community, town or region on their website.

Those interested can register themselves online.