It could be thought that local government is not a fertile ground to develop electronic administration, since it makes two of the core promises of eGovernment largely irrelevant: that of abolishing distances (by definition, local authorities are never quite far) and that of making things simpler (local authorities deal with relatively simple issues).

And yet, as the first line of administration and government, councils must serve the purpose of easing the experience of the citizens with e-services, helping them to take their first steps into the world of electronic transactions, building trust in such systems and enhancing their confidence.

This notion of Municipal eGovernment as a comforting gateway to the larger world of e-transactions requires that councils and local development entities must be given the best attention and proper means to implement electronic services adequately, because failure or even only mere discontent among their users might jeopardise the people’s adoption of higher level services, if not of the information society as a whole.

Workshop format
The workshop will give participants the opportunity to learn about a number of innovative practices related to eGovernment at the municipal or local level. Key actors of the cases presented will attend to allow in depth discussions about their services, the difficulties encountered and how they were overcome.

The aim of this meeting is to gather experts and practioners whose experience and projects will be empowered by discussions, debates and exchanges which will lay groundwork for a genuine community of practice that will continue building up the local eGovernment services of tomorrow using online facilities provided by ePractice.eu.

After two keynote speeches by Mr. Eric Legale (Managing Director of Issy Media) and Mr. Julián Casasbuenas (Director of the NGO Colnodo), three real life case studies will be presented to the audience. Afterwards, the workshop participants will work on the cases and possible solutions will be presented.

Fees
Workshop attendance is free of charge.

If you are not an ePractice member, before signing up for the workshop you need to register

10:30-10:45h	Welcome and ePractice.eu approach	Mr. Baudouin de Sonis
10:45–11:15h	Issy-les-Moulineaux, a digital city - Q&A	Mr. Eric Legale
11:15–11:45h	Case 1: Building activity notification dematerialized and on-line - Q&A"	Mr. Paolo Boscolo
11:45–12:00h	Coffee Break
12:00–12:30h	Case 2: Intelligent Virtual Citizens Attention Service - Q&A	Ms. Merce Rovira Regas
12:30-13:00h	Case 3: Digital Dundee - Q&A	Mr. Paul Carroll
13:00-14:00h	Lunch Break
14:00-15:00h	Working sessions	Chaired by Mr. Baudouin de Sonis and Mr. Fançois Heidenryckx
15:00-16:00h	"Internet for Accountability, the experience in Colombia" - Q&A and Discussion	Mr. Julián Casasbuenas, director of the NGO Colnodo (Colombia)
16:00-16:30h	Wrap-up	Mr. François Heidenryckx
16:30h	Closing	Mr. Baudouin de Sonis

European Commission
DG Information Society and Media - BU25
Avenue de Beaulieu 25
Brussels