Innovaciones tecnológicas y ciudadanía (notas de la Experiencia Portuguesa).

1. LUIS SOARES BARBOSA
UNIVERSIDADE DO MINHO & INESC TEC
UNU-EGOV
BOGOTA, 24 JULY 2015
TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION
AND
CITIZENSHIP
(NOTES ON THE PORTUGUESE EXPERIENCE)

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EGOV: FORM & FUNCTION
EGOV is for … governance …
E in EGOV as an operational component serving a
broader objective: that of providing infrastructure and
public services, defining and implementing public
policies in an efficient and participative way
 A case for the E in EGOV in the iceberg metaphor
… as more than ever, FORM models FUNCTION

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PLAN
1. Technology & Innovation
2. The Portuguese Experience
3. The Role of EGOV Innovation
4. The EGOV Innovation Hub @UMinho

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TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
DOES IT MATTER?
Nicholas Carr (2003, in the aftermath of the IT bubble):
• Companies should spend less in IT
• and take it as defensive investment, rather that an
offensive one

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TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
• But in fact it was not IT that was flawed, but the
investor’s projections that were too optimistic …
• The gap between being a winner or a lagging firm in
IT-intensive industry is large and growing
(Sorell & Zhu, 2009)

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TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
USING TECHNOLOGY EFFECTIVELY MATTERS
MORE NOW THAN EVER BEFORE
• It is worthwhile to study IT’s strategic value business
• taking it not as just another type of capital investment
• … but measuring complementary investments, e.g.
training, consulting, testing, process engineering …
• … and examining the value of product quality,
timeliness, variety, convenience and new products and
procedures

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TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
IS THIS DIFFERENT FOR THE PUBLIC SECTOR?
50 years ago companies suffered from the same bloat
that government does, but:
• Business has changed shape dramatically since then:
slimming, focusing, building networks …
• The State is still stuck in the era of vertical integrations
(when Henry Ford thought it made sense to own the sheep
whose wool went into the seat covers of his cars …)

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TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
 Sustainable articulation between new forms of service
delivery
 Data availability at a huge scale
 Possibility of continuous assessment and monitorization
 Change of gravity center for citizenship
 …
Internet, cloud, mobility, pervasive networking, IT mediated
collaboration, … have potential to bring:

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TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION
… is beginning to do for services what machines did for
agriculture and industry
… removed from the State what was once one of of its
great sources of power: the information “monopoly”
… is changing the nature of the relationships with the
State:
from a hierarchical structure to a network that can
mobilise the energies and abilities of millions of
well informed citizens

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TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
NEW TECHNOLOGIES OFFER THE CHANCE TO IMPROVE
GOVERNMENT DRAMATICALLY
i.e. the chance to modernise an institution --- the state ---
which we have overloaded with responsabilities …
• even if doing so implies revisiting an old question:
what is the State for?

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THE PORTUGUESE EXPERIENCE

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THE PORTUGUESE EXPERIENCE
PUTTING THE USER AT THE CENTER OF THE PUBLIC-SECTOR UNIVERSE
• The Citizen Shop (1999) and the Citizen Desk (2012)
• Service integration
• Reorganization of public services backoffices
• Coexistence of complementary channels
• Partnerships with the private sector

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THE PORTUGUESE EXPERIENCE
ADMINISTRATIVE SIMPLIFICATION
• The Simplex program (2006) & friends
• Process dematerialization
• Focus on making the management of economy agile
(Licenciamento Zero, Entrepeneur Desk, …)
• Multi-level, intersectorial integration
• The “Tell only once” principle (2014)
• Partnerships with the private sector

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THE PORTUGUESE EXPERIENCE
INTEGRATION & INTERCONNECTION
• The Citizen Card (2007) & the Digital Mobile Key (2015)
• Main catalyst for the EGOV strategy in Portugal
(digital signature, access integration)
• Broader, simplified access
• Multi-level, intersectorial integration
(the “I lost my wallet” Desk)
• Adoption (although incomplete) of open formats
• Semantic & technical interoperability
• … also a cultural challenge!

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THE ROLE OF EGOV INNOVATION
RAISING PUBLIC SERVICE AND EFFICIENCY
Low added-value work:
A lot of traditional clerkwork tasks can now be made self-service
… and citizens become aware of the true cost of the services
they are using (detailed invoicing to citizens services)
High added-value work:
• State needs to be a much better and better prepared regulator
e.g. mandatory public e-tendering

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THE ROLE OF EGOV INNOVATION
RAISING PUBLIC TRANSPARENCY
• Open governmental data
• Open (local, sectorial, …) budget and actions screening
• Combat to fiscal evasion and parallel economy:
imbalances translate either to bigger taxes or better tax
compliance
Digital is key in increasing the level of compliance

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THE ROLE OF EGOV INNOVATION
RAISING CITIZEN INVOLVEMENT / PARTICIPATION
• Need to recover citizen engagement and enhance representation
from citizen's opinions
--- a key issue to tackle populism
• Local Gov experiments are more successful than central Gov ones
• The cost of “listening to the People” has been reduced –– which
entails the need for preparing for decisions and implementing them

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THE ROLE OF EGOV INNOVATION
RAISING THE POTENTIAL FOR MEETING NEW CHALLENGES
Technology: MOBILE TECHNOLOGY
Frameworks for interoperable mobile services
Technology: AUTOMATED REASONING
Law Quality validation and simplification
Technology: SECURITY TECHNIQUES
Long-term legal digital-signed document services
Technology: CLOUD
Security assessment of PaaS solutions

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THE EGOV INNOVATION HUB

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THE EGOV INNOVATION HUB
 AMA – Governmental Agency responsible for EGOV
development in Portugal (2007)
 UNU-EGOV - A think-tank on egov for THE United
Nations (UN) System and member states of the UN
(2014)
 UMINHO – A multidisciplinary, research-oriented
University (1973)

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THE EGOV INNOVATION HUB
 To seek synergies between major players –
government, academia, private sector, NGOs, society;
for EGOV innovations
 To be a think-tank for Inter-sectoral and multi-level
public administration problems
 To offer an innovation lab for designing and testing
EGOV solutions

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THE EGOV INNOVATION HUB
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
 To promote research and innovation in policy,
technology and processes
 TOPICS: accountability, open government,
interoperability, dematerialisation, mobility, open
data, mobile architectures, security, trustworthy
software infrastructures,
inclusion and participation…

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THE EGOV INNOVATION HUB
INTERNATIONALIZATION
 identify, develop and package remarkable experience
and achievements in Electronic Governance
 share and promote this experience internationally
 building the eGov Innovation Hub as a joint global
brand.

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THE EGOV INNOVATION HUB
TRAINING AND CAPACITY BUILDING
 To become a trustworthy partner for research,
consultancy, executive training and capacity building
 … at all levels of public administration, sectorial and
inter-sectorial, local, regional, national and
international

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THE EGOV INNOVATION HUB