Governments Urged To Usher In Smart Governance Through Collaboration, Efficient Infrastructure

Collaboration between government entities and integration of various services through efficient infrastructure are key to the successful transition towards a smart government, panelists said during a plenary session on the concluding day of the Government Summit 2014.

“The customer is at the core of the smart government. The priority in the shift towards a smart government is to create the infrastructure that enables customers to meet their service requirements swiftly and smoothly using their mobile phones,” said H.E. Mohammed Nasser Al Ghanim, Director General of the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, UAE.

Ghanim said the biggest challenge in smart government is to satisfy customer expectations on services. To ensure seamless service delivery, the UAE is already focused on putting in place a secure and integrated infrastructure involving the government entities, the central bank and telecom companies, Ghanim added.

Security is another major challenge and developers of mobile apps should be aware of this issue and adequately trained. For this purpose, TRA has developed a guidebook, Ghanim said.

H.E. Rashed Lahej Al Mansoori, Director General of Abu Dhabi Systems and Information Centre, said the UAE has made huge leaps during the last 10 years to move towards smart government. In the coming years, desktop computers and even laptops may become redundant as all services become available on smartphones. Service providers must change their internal processes to suit this form of governance, Mansoori said.

“Governments in a smart government environment must know what the customers need. Customers must be equipped with the channels to reach decision makers and provide their feedbacks to make the changes required to enhance service delivery,” he added.

Dr Jeongwan Yoon, Executive Director at the National Information Agency – South Korea, said smart government infrastructure is a priority for South Korea. He said the country is investing $1.8 billion this year on increasing bandwidth and up to $6.7 billion on improving mobile services in both private and public sector.

Yoon said big data analysis to utilize available data for maximum impact is a key area. Besides, South Korea is focusing on ambient intelligence and integrated all data centres on cloud, achieving major savings.

“Every country working on smart government is working on it for the next generation, and in South Korea we expect that this initiative will create 150,000 jobs in the market,” Yoon said.

Vincent Wong, Chief Executive Officer at IDA-International – Singapore, said smart government is the creation of happiness in citizens, and this cannot be achieved if there is mismatch of expectations.

Smart government must take into consideration that people who are not tech-savvy exist in the society. Therefore, measures such as training and support for such groups must be made available to ensure the success of the smart government initiative. More importantly, smart government cannot be achieved without achieving government efficiency, he added. Ends

Emirate:  Dubai

Date: Feb 12, 2014

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