Friday, 3 September 2010
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Local Government
The world’s most sustainable city?
Imagine a city powered almost entirely by the sun. A city in which smart homes use energy only when it is needed, where driverless electric cars ferry passengers to work in low-emission buildings, and where healthcare, education, public safety and transport systems ‘talk’ to each other, getting people to hospital quicker and children to school on time. Could this city be in Asia?
Government
Is Facebook suitable for govt transactions?
Last week, an airline in the United States became the ...
Central Government
Ex-US GCIO warns on cloud security
In an interview with FutureGov, a former United States cabinet-level ...
30 July 2010 | News
How useful is Twitter’s government service?
The news that Twitter will launch a service for public servants has been met with interest from prominent tweeting officials in Asia. However, Trudy Rankin, CIO of New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, told FutureGov that government business should not be dictated to by the popular micro-blogging site.
21 July 2010 | News
Seoul tops global cities ranking for e-govt
The South Korean capital of Seoul is the world’s most advanced municipal e-government, according to a global survey of city web sites. The “Soul of Asia” topped the UN-sponsored table ahead of Prague, Hong Kong, New York and Singapore on the usability, content, services, privacy and inclusiveness of its online operations.
21 June 2010 | News
Are cancer maps a good idea?
The New York State Department of Health recently launched a series of ‘cancer maps’ which allow users to view incidences of cancer in a given geographical area. These maps, which are freely available online, are not without controversy. Could the idea work in Asia?
7 June 2010 | News
UN reveals changes to E-Government rankings
In an interview with FutureGov, the director of the United Nations E-Government rankings has revealed how the next survey will be modified to stay up to date with emerging trends.
3 June 2010 | News
Scientists design cow dung-powered data centre
Researchers have found a way to combine dairy farm waste and the heat generated from data centres to create a sustainable ecosystem.
24 May 2010 | News
Facebook warns govt users on privacy
More than 2000 Facebook pages are used by 35 federal agencies in the United States. Many more government agencies in Asia are now on Facebook, amassing millions of fans. But government Facebookers should be mindful of privacy issues when archiving content, a Facebook spokesman has cautioned in an interview with FutureGov.
18 May 2010 | News
OECD plots next generation e-govt indicators
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has entered talks with the producers of the major global e-government surveys with a view to launching new e-government indicators that focus on public sector performance.
11 May 2010 | News
World Bank opens up development data
The World Bank is the latest information-rich organisation to free up its data for public consumption. The portal data.worldbank.org will give policymakers access to more than 2000 financial, business, health, economic and human development statistics, information that was previously exclusive to paying subscribers.
7 May 2010 | News
Are you ready for the digital Big Bang?
Within the next decade, the volume of data amassed in the world will be equivalent to a stack of DVDs reaching halfway from earth to mars. Data streaming through cables and airwaves will amount to 35 trillion gigabytes by 2020, a 44-fold increase in the volume of information around today.
20 April 2010 | News
Washington fraud-busters turn to social analytics
Faced with a US$1.8 billion budget deficit plus staff cuts and pay freezes in the civil service, losing millions to fraud is the last thing the state of Washington needs. In an interview with FutureGov in Seattle last week, fraud detection agents from Washington’s Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) revealed how social networking business analytics is curbing the rise of compensation cheats.
20 April 2010 | News
What role will govt play in social web of the future?
In the not too distant future, a new generation of social media will be administered by virtual civil servants and patrolled by cyber sheriffs. Highly evolved versions of Second Life, where netizens meet, trade, and play, will also become places where policy is debated and decided. Sound fanciful? Well, this is the way the world is headed, predicts futurist and author Thornton May.
19 March 2010 | News
MIT reveals leading edutech projects
Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a dedicated team which drives the innovative use of technology in teaching and learning. Speaking exclusively to FutureGov, Vijay Kumar, who heads the Office of Educational Innovation and Technology, revealed its key IT projects for 2010.
23 February 2010 | Feature
Malaysia banks on ICT to meet 2020 development goals
Malaysia’s Government CIO has hailed ICT as a “key enabler” to fulfil Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s mission to transform Malaysia into a developed nation by 2020. Speaking at the FutureGov Forum Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday (23rd February 2010), Dr Nor Aliah Zahri, Government CIO and Deputy Director General of the Malaysian …
21 February 2010 | News
Korea hails California’s govt IT strategy
The South Korean government’s Director of Green IT has described the government of California’s plan to cut the energy its IT operations use by 30 per cent by 2012 as “very aggressive” as Korea embarks on its own mission to reduce energy consumption from 40 ministries and agencies by 15 per cent by 2013.
9 February 2010 | News
Interpol rebuffs calls for web police
Calls for the creation of an internet police force to tackle unprecedented levels of cyber crime have been rebuffed by the director of IT at Interpol in an interview with FutureGov. Noboru Nakatani, Director for Information Systems and Technology for the global police network Interpol said that setting up a net police would be “reinventing the wheel” and the …
9 February 2010 | News
Should govts archive social media posts?
It is fashionable for government agencies to have a Facebook or Twitter account these days. But should tweets and status updates be backed up to leave a digital trail for transparency’s sake? Not all policymakers have made their minds up, as perspectives from the United States, Europe and Asia reveal in interviews with FutureGov.
9 February 2010 | News
How top US care network stays ahead
“Vigorously promoted” clinical guidelines combined with computerised decision support systems make Intermountain Healthcare a resounding success
4 February 2010 | News
Medicine ‘much more complicated’ than aviation
People often compare safety of medical practice with that of flying an airplane. Dr David Bates, Chief of General Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a leading researcher in Health IT, told FutureGov that while medicine as a whole could never reach the safety level of civil aviation, there are areas which IT can help bring medical safety to comparable levels of civil aviation.
26 January 2010 | News
Politicians ponder what’s next at FutureGov Forum
Elected politicians from Hong Kong and Singapore shared their perspectives on the future of governance and public service delivery at the FutureGov Forum in Singapore today. Zaqy Mohamad, Member of Parliament & Chairman for the Government Parliamentary Committee for Singapore’s Ministry of Information Communication and the Arts, told delegates that while his country has always …
19 January 2010 | Interview
What are government’s security weak spots?
Microsoft’s global public safety and national security head Tim Bloechl has a Facebook account, but doesn’t trust social media as a reliable source of intelligence. Not yet anyway. When confronted with a threat to public safety, dealing with it should be second nature. So says Tim Bloechl, Microsoft’s Managing Director for Worldwide Public Safety and National Security.
19 January 2010 | Feature
Government Cloud: Public or Private?
Asia‘s first ever public sector summit on cloud computing suggested that the economics of cloud computing trumped other concerns - but that private clouds would be the necessary first stepping stone to prove the technology could deliver.
7 January 2010 | Feature
Moving from planning to impact
Government is back, and it is not going away anytime soon. Following a tumultuous 12 months in which governments throughout the region had dramatically increased their role within national economies, the 132 delegates to the FutureGov Summit, Asia’s annual gathering of senior government officials, took time out of the busy schedules to share what had worked well, and lay out their plans for the future of public administration.
5 January 2010 | Interview
Putting government to the test
Two candidates enter the hall for the same examination. As the examination proceeds, the computer selects the next question from a database based on each examinee’s performance so far. The stronger candidate gets presented with more difficult questions while the other get easier ones. Immediately after, the computer generates equitable scores even though both have experienced a different test set.
5 January 2010 | Feature
Schools: The Public sector’s green Champions
169 education executives participated in a FutureGov Research survey on the future trends transforming teaching and learning in June. The results, from 13 countries across Asia Pacific, will have put a smile on the faces of tree huggers.
4 January 2010 | News
Agency walls too high for US Cyber Security Czar?
Howard Schmidt, the newly appointed United States Cyber Security Coordinator, faces the daunting challenge of ensuring that different government agencies cooperate on cyber security issues, a senior government official has told FutureGov.
24 December 2009 | News
New York to deploy health information exchange platform
The Healthcare Information Xchange New York will deploy a software platform for information exchange, as part of the effort to connect healthcare organisations across the regional served by the organisation: 17 counties in northern New York State.
25 November 2009 | News
US government launches new Health IT blog
Dr David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for Health IT, has launched Health IT Buzz, to give readers more information about health information technology (HIT) and provide a forum for public engagement.
28 September 2009 | News
US Congress pressed on the importance of healthcare IT
Health IT advocates and stakeholders congregated in the Capitol Hill last week, in an effort to “raise national attention on the importance of health IT in healthcare reform”.
18 September 2009 | News
One-stop cloud source launched for US federal agencies
The US government has launched Apps.gov, a dedicated web site for federal agencies to ‘quickly browse and purchase cloud-based IT services for productivity, collaboration and efficiency’.
8 September 2009 | News
US cyber security system sparks privacy row
A new version of a computer intrusion detection system being developed by the United States Department of Homeland Security has raised concerns from advocacy groups over privacy and the involvement of the National Security Agency (NSA) in the development of the software. The new system, known as Einstein 3, can reportedly read email as well as its original function, to detect malicious software.
12 August 2009 | Spotlight
Critical Government Services Are Becoming Event Driven: Tibco
Whether they’re ready for it or not, in line with the new models of Citizen Centric Government, or System Centric Services, many government agencies are becoming event driven.
11 August 2009 | News
US cybersecurity guidelines come under fire
A new set of guidelines on cybersecurity released by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the United States has fallen short of the protection needed for government systems, a cybersecurity analysis group has warned.
3 August 2009 | News
US govt IT departments still confused by cloud computing
Federal officials in the United States think that cloud computing will play a big role in future government IT initiatives. But they are still confused about what cloud computing is and want security assurances before adopting it on a large scale, a survey of federal IT managers has found.
23 July 2009 | News
US govt admits to being a web 2.0 laggard
Federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra has admitted that the United States government is lagging far behind its citizens in its use of the internet to communicate, collaborate and solve problems using social networking platforms.
20 July 2009 | News
Cloud could boost inter-agency collaboration: US GCIO
Vivek Kundra, the United States Federal Chief Information Officer, has said that cloud computing could enable governments to better share information and boost collaboration among federal, state and local government agencies.
13 July 2009 | News
US and Korean govt web sites attacked
Cyber attacks assumed to be launched from North Korea disrupted United States and South Korean government and key private sector websites last week.
23 June 2009 | News
Supply chain management key to green govt: analyst
Supply-chain management software has a key role to play in helping the public sector meet its green mandate - but the products available are far from mature, according to analyst firm Ovum.
15 June 2009 | News
Obama electioneer worried about waning social media appeal
Scott Goodstein, the brains behind United States President Barack Obama’s online election campaign, told delegates at a conference last week (Wednesday 10 June 2009) that the effectiveness of social media platforms as a communication tool for government is likely to wane – and fast – in the coming months.
15 June 2009 | News
San Francisco govt contact centre now on Twitter
San Francisco residents can now reach the government customer service centre through Twitter, a free social messaging tool.
12 June 2009 | News
Former US GCIO calls for better data management
The Obama administration’s push to make government data more easily accessible is driving the need for standardised data classification and information management, a former Government Chief Information Officer has said.
11 June 2009 | News
CIO of world’s biggest hospital to blog for FutureGov
Jialin Liu, Director, Centre of Medical Informatics at the 5000-bed West China Hospital, will share his insights with readers of FutureGov.
9 June 2009 | News
CIO moots cloud for health records storage
Cloud computing could be a solution for the electronic storage and exchange of trillions of patient health records, the Chief Information Officer of the American Indian Health Service (IHS) has suggested.
8 June 2009 | News
World’s first tuition-free online university opens
The United Nations (UN) has launched the world’s first tuition-free, online university.
2 June 2009 | News
US Cyber Czar role plagued by political wrangling
The announcement of the US Government’s first Cyber Czar has been delayed amid speculation that the newly created role has become embroiled in a political row.
2 June 2009 | News
Is Singapore's e-govt model exportable?
Singapore wants to sell its e-government model to the world. But do other countries want or need what Singapore is offering? FutureGov asked government information officers in India, China, South Korea and the Philippines…
28 May 2009 | News
US Cyber Czar frontrunners revealed
Melissa Hathaway, Rod Beckstrom and Paul Kurtz are the frontrunners in the race to be the US government’s first ‘Cyber Czar’. So tips Don Adams, the Palo Alto-based Chief Technology Officer, Worldwide, Public Sector for tech giant Tibco.
26 May 2009 | News
US hospital webcasts brain surgery to promote services
A hospital in the United States has webcast an operation to remove a brain cancer as part of a promotional campaign to educate patients, entice donors, and recruit top doctors.
26 May 2009 | News
Swine flu calls for tougher IT security for home workers
With the threat of a global swine flu pandemic looming, IT consolidation and virtualization initiatives may be the solution to enable workers to work from home, an IT infrastructure and security vendor has suggested.
19 May 2009 | News
Stimulus packages to add to rising data burden
Government efforts to stimulate their economies will lead to a dramatic increase in the volume of digital information created, a report by EMC and IDC has predicted.
12 May 2009 | News
Obama: healthcare cost-cuts can amount to US$3 tril
US President Barack Obama has won a big victory in his battle to reform the American healthcare system. Some former opponents of reform are now offering their support.
4 May 2009 | News
Swine flu prompts teleworking rethink
The threat of a pandemic are prompting governments to evaluate the role of teleworking to keep essential services up-and-running.
29 April 2009 | News
Citizen satisfaction with e-government falls in the US
Citizen satisfaction with federal government web sites has fallen in the US in the first quarter of this year, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Government Satisfaction Index.
22 April 2009 | News
Government to buck trend for cutting green IT
Governments are expected to buck an industry-wide trend for diverting spend away from green IT projects due to the global economic downturn, according to IT analyst Gartner.
22 April 2009 | News
Sun/Oracle merger: why the public sector should worry
Oracle Corporation’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems should worry the public sector because the enlarged entity could lead to price hikes and “vendor lock-in”, according to an IT analyst.
16 April 2009 | News
Utah state offers services via iPhone
Residents of the US state of Utah have been given access to iPhone applications developed by a state government for the first time.
7 April 2009 | News
Microsoft updates e-health platform
Microsoft is set to unveil a new version of its software for aggregating health records which it claims makes it easier for patients and doctors to share information electronically.
31 March 2009 | News
US healthcare centre slashes heart attack death risk
‘Integration approach’ with engaged clinical team and advanced technology help US care giver deliver dramatic results
18 March 2009 | News
Three quarters of gov agencies to embrace GIS
Three-quarters of government agencies in Europe and North America have, or plan to implement geographic information systems (GIS) for crime monitoring, urban planning, traffic monitoring and national defense, according to a survey by market analyst Datamonitor.
11 March 2009 | News
Tibco: new US CIO needs discipline and focus
Tibco’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Don Adams has praised President Barack Obama’s appointment of Vivek Kundra as Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the United States government, but warns that Kundra will have to have “laser beam focus” on where he can achieve early successes.
18 February 2009 | News
World’s largest virtualised desktop deployment in Brazil’s schools
Brazil is to install 356,800 virtualised desktops to schools in all of the country’s 5560 municipalities, allowing millions of schoolchildren to access information technology across the country.
19 December 2008 | Research
US youths pick up social and technical skills online
Results from an extensive US study by the Digital Youth Project on teens and their use of digital media show that America’s youth are developing important social and technical skills online – often in ways adults do not understand or value.
18 December 2008 | News
UN launches e-learning initiative in over 160 countries
A new UN e-learning initiative will offer developing countries opportunities to draw upon a rich array of training and capacity-building resources.
17 December 2008 | Research
Satisfaction with govt agency leads to trust in whole govt
New American Customer Satisfaction Index data suggest that a satisfying experience with a specific government agency can improve trust in the government as a whole. The positive correlation extends beyond trust with the agency itself to citizens’ overall perception of the government.
16 December 2008 | Deals
US defence awards US$111 mil security services contract
EDS, a HP company, has been awarded a US$111 million contract by the US Defence Information Systems Agency to provide security readiness reviews for the Department of Defence.
26 November 2008 | News
Election processes improved with GIS
For the 2008 elections, the Registrar of Voters of Alameda County in California used ESRI’s GIS software to simplify precinct analysis and polling station siting processes.
24 November 2008 | News
Personal health records to save US$21 billion a year?
A US study has projected that personal health records could potentially save the country US$21 billion a year.
7 November 2008 | News
GIS boosts law enforcement work in New York
The New York City Department of Probation has deployed ESRI’s geographic information system software to manage caseloads, track high-risk probationers, and share information with other law enforcement divisions more efficiently.
10 October 2008 | News
‘Internet for Everyone’ campaign launched in Canada
Telecommunities Canada (TC), a national coalition of groups that promote and support community technology initiatives, has launched the “Internet for Everyone” campaign that seeks to put a national ICT strategy back on the federal agenda.
23 September 2008 | News
IBM tops security software report
A new report has rated IBM as the leading vendor worldwide in identity and access management security software in 2007.
18 September 2008 | News
R&D centre launched for social software
IBM has launched a centre for social software, which will bring together the top talent at the company who will work with university students and faculty, clients and partners, for the research, development and testing of social software.
15 September 2008 | News
US Postal Service reduces costs with transportation scenario analysis
The United States Postal Service (USPS) has realised over US$5 million in annual savings through a strategic transportation management initiative.
2 September 2008 | News
Google launches web browser
Google is joining the browser war by launching its own application which aims at offering safer and richer web experience.
30 August 2008 | Research
Information Management Mistakes Can Wreak Havoc in the Public Sector
Prudent data security management has historically been the sole domain of the Chief Information Officer (CIO); and that is no longer the case. As of June 2008, more than 330 million records were compromised globally.
29 August 2008 | Research
Having everyone equipped with PCs has green flaws
Across the globe, the number of personal computers in use has exceeded one billion and the figures will double by 2014. This development will account for PCs dumped into landfills without consideration for its toxic content, says Meike Escherich, Principal Research Analyst at Gartner.
27 August 2008 | News
Free green power for Canadian government IT
Canada’s provincial governments are setting the wheels in motion to move their IT processing to greener IT data centres that are powered by renewable hydro-electricity.
11 August 2008 | News
Local government takes the lead in US
Green initiatives are being given a push from the bottom upwards in Arizona. Don Stapley Supervisor of Maricopa County says, “We want counties to be a catalyst for the change in the mindset of Americans.
7 August 2008 | Feature
WiMax around the world
Jianggan Li rounds up his interviews with the people behind WiMax deployments in France, the Netherlands and the United States.
4 August 2008 | Research
US e-government satisfaction rising
E-government satisfaction can drive citizens to online channel, lead to cost savings, suggests new research.
1 August 2008 | Deals
Fourth largest US city signs GIS deal
Houston municipal staff look forward to simplified access to GIS tools and accelerated GIS development across the enterprise.
1 August 2008 | News
IBM Research develops tech fix to aid human memory
New software helps people struggling with information overload.
20 September 2007 | Deals
High-speed link to US schools
Indian and US universities to partner each other
19 August 2007 | Deals
US$93.4 million earmarked for govt projects in Pakistan
Keeping in view the importance of IT in the economic development of the country, the Pakistani government has allocated Rs 5.64 billion (US $ 93.4 million) for 115 IT related development projects for the current fiscal year 2007-08.
3 May 2007 | Spotlight
Transparent, interoperable, secure: the Office Open XML file format
Oliver Bell, Regional Technology Officer, Microsoft Asia, highlights the importance of choice and compatibility in achieving the maximum benefits through effective XML data representation.
7 May 2006 | News
Extending the enterprise: ruggedised government computing
There is no longer a trade off between knowledge-based working and mobility as a new generation of Panasonic ruggedised notebooks find favour with government users.
16 February 2006 | News
Autodesk web mapping goes open source
Design and data visualisation giant Autodesk has revolutionised the prospects for open source web mapping by making the code of its next-generation web mapping platform freely available.
4 July 2005 | News
The struggle to meet rising citizen expectations
The publication in April of Accenture’s sixth annual report on global government service delivery highlighted a persistent gap between citizen expectations and public sector delivery. Report: James Smith.
29 April 2005 | News
Building a public feedback mechanism
James George Chacko, Programme Specialist with the United Nations’ Asia Pacific Development Information Programme, discusses the policy and operational advantages of listening to citizen feedback. Interview: James Smith.
21 April 2005 | News
Does civil service = poor service?
The private sector has invested heavily in improving the customer experience. Now it’s time for government agencies to play catch-up. Report: James Smith.
24 December 2004 | Deals
Self-service deployments: best practice guide
Welcome to the second volume in a series of Best Practices Guides written by Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories.
9 November 2004 | News
E-government and the surveillance society?
The fight against terrorism, and the data requirements of e-government, raise the issue of finding the right balance between security and privacy, writes Thomas Riley.
6 May 2004 | News
Canada remains e-government leader
Canada is top dog in the world of e-government for the fourth successive year - though Singapore, Australia and Japan are making great strides forward. Report: Edmund Tan.
12 April 2004 | News
Canadian city invests in software to improve efficiency
The City of Calgary has chosen to upgrade to an enterprise software platform executives say will be supported for the long term and will provide a base on which to add greater functionality down the road. Report: Edmund Tan.
24 February 2004 | News
From disappearing boundaries to security governance
Two seemingly contradictory movements have recently appeared on the IT landscape, writes Philippe Langlois.
28 December 2003 | News
Moving your Malware strategy out of the dark ages
It’s time to review your organisation’s approach to external threats to your network, says Greg Day.
19 April 2002 | News
San Diego Port District streamlines budgeting process
Government entity responsible for San Diego’s harbour, airport and public lands uses web-based management solution to help manage quarter billion dollar budget. Report: James Smith.
30 August 2001 | News
Asian governance and the 'Knowledge Economy'
A more knowledge-intensive approach to governance will redefine how the public sector relates internally to its own agencies and its own employees, writes James Smith.
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Will Facebook profiles replace govt web sites?
It’s all the rage for ministries and agencies to have a Facebook pages these ...
Singapore awards US$144m EHR contract
A consortium made up by Accenture, Oracle, and Orion Health has won Singapore’s National ...