EUROCITIES Knowledge Society Forum
TeleCities 2005
Autumn Event, Prague
EKSF Telecities event 2005
13. - 14. 10. 2005
eGovernment 2005
12. 10. 2005
Introduction
Dear visitors,
Welcome to the website of the conference organised by the City of Prague in cooperation with the EUROCITIES Knowledge Society Forum - TeleCities and the Union of Cities and Municipalities of the Czech Republic, which was held in Prague from 12 through 14 October 2005.
In the event you are interested in complete conference materials published as an electronic collection on a CD-ROM, kindly contact Ms. Renata Tomanová (see the Contact Page), who will send you this CD-ROM at your request!
The conference was designed as a merger of two events.
- On 12 October 2005 the Meeting of eGovernment in the Czech and Slovak Towns was held. Its programme consisted of thematic blocks dedicated to strategies of cities in the fields of informatics, development of high-speed infrastructure (broadband), and electronic services.
- This Meeting was, on 13 to 14 October 2005, followed by the main international part of the EUROCITIES Knowledge Society Forum - TeleCities 2005, Autumn Event, with topics of cooperation and effectiveness under the title of "Interoperability and greater cost-effectiveness of the provision of public services".
Around 150 experts and political representatives of European cities, states, and self-government associations attended the conference. In nearly 60 lectures there were examples of interesting projects concerning issues of the public administration modernising and of providing the citizens with services using information technology presented. There was also a broad discussion held on trends, strategies, and challenges, which these topical issues bring at the context of the whole Europe.
Leading representatives of the Czech and Slovak cities and the Union of Towns and Municipalities of the Czech Republic (Pavel Bém - Mayor of the City of Prague, Oldřich Vlasák - Chairman of the Union of Towns and Municipalities of the Czech Republic, Zbyněk Stanjura - Mayor of the City of Opava, Hynek Steska - Deputy Mayor of the City of Zlín, and Tomáš Kubín - Deputy Mayor of the City of České Budějovice), respectively delivered their contributions at the conference together with informatics experts from other, mostly statutory towns of the Czech Republic. The solutions of Slovak cities were presented by representatives of the Union of Towns of the Slovak Republic (Miroslav Drobný, Lučenec and Juraj Svoboda, Martin). On behalf of the Ministry of Informatics of the Czech Republic Vladimír Hořejší and Marek Zukal, Deputy Ministers, and Arnošt Traxler, Chairman of the Broadband Forum delivered their speeches. Josef Postránecký, Deputy Minister presented activities of the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic.
From among foreign speakers representatives of European cities are, first of all, to mention, and namely members of the EKSF-TeleCities network as Chris Newby, Chairman - Councillor of the City of Liverpool, Albert Deistler, Vice-Chairman - Cologne, Dave Carter - Manchester, and others. Karel De Vriendt, representative of the European Commission, from DG Enterprise and Industry, and Chris Haynes, Advisor to the Government of the United Kingdom for eGovernment also made their contributions. Representatives of foreign associations included the representatives of Elanet at the Council of European Municipalities and Regions - Heikki Lunnas from Finland and Krzysztof Glomb from Poland, as well as Gareth Hughes, Chairman of the ERIS@ Association of Regions.
The programme also contained the ceremonial signing of the EUROCITIES Charter on the Rights of Citizens in the Knowledge Society (the eRights Charter). Pavel Bém, Mayor of the City of Prague, and Jerzy Kropiwnicki, Mayor of the City of Lodz, were among those who signed the Charter. Other cities such as Ostrava joined the Charter at the occasion of the Prague conference.
A significant part of the conference was also dedicated to the seminar entitled "Workshop Towards Inclusive Online Provision of Public Services in European Cities and Regions" and organised in cooperation with people responsible for solving of the European project of eUser on providing the citizens with on-line services. At the seminar examples of good practice and results of comparative studies were presented, including the publication "Czech Cities on the Road to the Information Society", which was developed as an outcome of the projects of eCitizenship for All / LORIS.
We believe that the participants of the conference as well as other visitors to these Internet pages will appreciate efforts we made in documenting the copious programme of the conference, including all presentations, accompanying materials, photographs, and sound recordings of speeches of some of the speakers present.
