Wednesday, 8 September 2010
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Central Government, Digital Inclusion, Local Government, Policy
Standards up at Government Technology Awards 2009
The standard of entries at the Government Technology Awards 2009 has received praised for the “very high quality” of submissions, particularly from developing countries in the region. However, there is still room for improvement in the Green Government category, noted Laurence Millar, former Government Chief Information Officer of New Zealand, and a member of the judging panel.
“The area of green government will become stronger in future years, as the importance of conservation increases,” Millar remarked after the event, held in Bali, Indonesia, on Friday night (October 9 2009).
South Korea’s Ministry of the Environment was a winner by a wide margin in the Green Government category for a broad range of green IT projects it has rolled out this year.
Millar added: “The standard of entries from across the region was very high, and it is exciting to see the range and depth of government use of technology. A number of projects are still developing, and have expected future release dates for significant components; I expect most of them will be strong candidates in 2010.”
The Government Technology Awards 2009 received more than 600 nominations from agencies across 12 categories - up from 212 entries in 2007, when the event first launched.
Winners this year included the Malaysia Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU), which won in the Technology Leadership category for eKL, an initiative to integrate and connect Malaysians in the capital and provide a single ‘No wrong door’ portal for government services.
The Philippines’ Commission on Information and Communications Technology claimed the Digital Inclusion award for the iSchools project, which aims to integrate ICT in education by providing ICT infrastructure and training to public high schools across the archipelago.
The Service Innovation gong went to the Vietnam Sustainable Development Centre’s ‘2-way information delivery’ model (2wID)’ for Vietnamese farmers. More than 80 per cent of the population of Vietnam are farmers, but their access to technology to help crop production has been limited - until the introduction of the 2wID platform and supporting e-services.
Millar added: “It is hard to compare across governments with hugely different contexts, but I was particularly impressed by the entries from developing countries, which have less experience in e-government. In general, I was looking for projects that had a significant impact on government administration and the citizen/business experience, evidence of innovation, a record of successful implementation, and a return on investment.”
He said that while it was tough to single out individuals, he reserved special praise for projects from the governments of India and Singapore.
India’s e-Lekha System, rolled out by the National Informatics Centre, achieved standardisation and efficiency of financial processing across a large number of government agencies and transaction types, delivering efficiencies, staff developments and transparency. The project won in the Systems Integration category.
Singapore, which won more awards than any other country, drew Millar’s attention for its Integrated Health Information Systems, a common electronic medical record platform in use across hospitals, specialist clinical providers and primary healthcare clinics. The platform, which won in the Information Management category, delivered better health outcomes, cost efficiencies and laid a foundation for a nationwide solution.
Also on the awards podium was Australia’s Department of Immigration for its Visa and citizen wizard, which won in the Business Process Management category, Singapore’s Ministry of Finance for the Unique Entity Number, which was awarded in the Connected Government category and - again - the National Informatics Centre of India, which won in the Data Centres category for its Internet Data Centre.
Malaysia was again a winner, this time in the E-Government category for the Business Licensing project by the Prime Minister’s Department. The Information Security award went to the Government Service Bus project, part of Saudi Arabia’s E-Government Programme. The Wireless Government award went to the Singapore Land Authority for the roll-out of a Mobile Geographical Information System called mgLAMS, which leveraged mobile GIS and GPS technology for the first time in the city-state.
Special mention, however, went to the Wireless broadband city of Yangzhou, which, according to Millar, has taken a comprehensive and visionary approach to creating a citywide wireless infrastructure as a foundation for government, businesses, and citizens. “I am sure it will be a winner in the future, as the vision becomes a reality on the ground,” he said.
Laurence Millar aside, this year’s judging panel included:
Sponsors this year included BlackBerry (Research In Motion), CrimsonLogic, EMC, Fuji Xerox, Kodak, novaCITYNETS, Microsoft, Red Hat and Symantec.
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