ICEGOV

The 3rd International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, ICEGOV2009, was organized in Bogota, Colombia during 10-13 November 2009. The conference took place under the patronage of the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, Government of Colombia, and was co-organized by: (1) Electronic Governance Programme at United Nations University - International Institute for Software Technology, (2) Observatorio de Sociedad, Gobierno y Tecnologías de Información, Universidad Externado de Colombia, and (3) Programa Gobierno en Línea, Government of Colombia.

The ICEGOV conference series focuses on the use of technology to transform relationships between government and its customers --- citizens, businesses, civil society and other arms of government (Electronic Governance), beyond the traditional focus on technology-enabled transformation within government (Electronic Government). After the first two editions --- ICEGOV2007 in Macao and ICEGOV2008 in Cairo, ICEGOV2009 helped to further strengthen the features of the ICEGOV conference series as global, multi-stakeholder, networking, research and practice, capacity building, development and UN conferences. Notably, the conference enjoyed a strong representation from developing and transition countries, with contributions to research and practice of Electronic Governance, and offered a strong capacity- and network-building program with invited talks, invited sessions, tutorials, workshops, panel discussions, round-table discussions, papers sessions, and the demo and poster session. For the first time, the conference featured invited sessions to present experiences and lessons learnt in Electronic Governance development by various government organizations responsible for such development at the national or sub-national levels, as well as three round-table discussions aimed at consensus-building.

ICEGOV2009 benefited from invited talks by three distinguished experts and practitioners in the area: (1) Her Excellency Ms. María del Rosario Guerra, Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Government of Colombia - government perspective, (2) Prof. Matthias Finger, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland - academic perspective, and (3) Dr. Saleem Zoughbi, Regional Advisor, Information and Communication Technology, United Nations Social and Economic Commission for Western Asia, Lebanon - international perspective. The talks took place on 11, 10 and 13 November 2009 respectively.

ICEGOV2009 also featured 12 invited sessions to present experiences and lessons learnt in Electronic Governance development at the national or sub-national levels: (1) Colombia - Programa Gobierno en Línea, Ministry of Information and Communication Technology; (2) Argentina - Officina Nacional de Tecnologias de la Informacion, Subsecretaria de Tecnologias de Gestion; (3) Dominican Republic - Centro de Estudios e Investigación de Gobierno Electrónico, Oficina Presidencial de Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación; (4) Chile --- Estrategia Digital; (5) Mexico - Secretaría de la Función Pública; (6) Korea - National Information Technology Industry Promotion Agency; (7) Rio Negre Province, Argentina --- Ministerio de Hacienda, Obras y Servicios Publicos, Provincia de Rio Negro; (8) Costa Rica - Gobierno Digital; (9) China --- National School of Administration; (10) Macao SAR --- Government of Macao SAR, China; (11) Mongolia --- ICT and Post Authority; and (12) Cameroon --- National Agency for ICT; and three invited sessions on the topical areas by the international or multi-national organizations specializing in them: Technology Leadership by International Academy of CIO; Interoperability and Open Standards by Microsoft Corporation; and e-Governance and Development by United Nations Development Programme. The invited sessions took place on 11 November 2009 (countries and regions) and 12 November 2009 (topical areas).

ICEGOV2009 also featured a capacity building program comprising a series of six tutorials - three on domain-independent aspects of Electronic Governance and three on e-applications: (1) Technology by Jim Davies, University of Oxford, UK; (2) Transformation by Pallab Saha, National University of Singapore, Singapore; (3) Policy by Sharon S. Dawes and Theresa A. Pardo, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, State University of New York, USA; (4) e-Health by Jennifer Zelmer, International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation, Denmark; (5) e-Economy by Wojciech Cellary, Poznan University of Economics, Poland; and (6) e-Leadership by Jean-Pierre Auffret, International Academy of CIO, USA and Elsa Estevez, United Nations University, Macao. The tutorials, held on 10 November 2009 provided the audience with the foundation and general understanding of the area.

The program also included three round-table discussions aimed at the national, regional and international consensus-building on specific topics of interest to the community, respectively: (1) How to Achieve High Take-up of Government Online organized by María Isabel Mejía Jaramillo, Programa Gobierno en Línea; (2) Towards Regional Dialogue to Promote Alliances co-organized by Florencia Ferrer, e- Stratégia Pública, Brazil and Miguel Porrua, Organization of American States, USA; and (3) Innovation Transfer Frameworks for Global Electronic Governance organized by Tomasz Janowski, United Nations University, Macao.

ICEGOV2009 received 102 submissions --- papers, case studies, demos and posters from 39 countries and economies: Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, India, Iran, Italy, Kenya, Korea, Macao SAR, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine Territory, Peru, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, UK, Uruguay and USA. After a review process by the 57- member international Program Committee, the conference accepted 24 papers (8 pages), 29 case studies (6 pages), 6 demos (4 pages) and 17 posters (2 pages). Accepted demos and posters were presented as part of the demo and poster session on 10 November 2009, while accepted papers and case studies were presented as part of 12 regular paper sessions on 11 and 12 November 2009, and presented and discussed as part of 6 synchronized workshops and panel discussions on 13 November.

The current volume comprises all invited as well as submitted and accepted contributions to the ICEGOV2009 conference. The volume is organized into 21 sections: one for invited contributions, 6 for workshops, 12 for regular paper sessions, one for demos and one for posters. The 6 workshops cover the topics of: Architecture and Interoperability, Collaboration and Information Sharing, Knowledge Management, e-Policy, e-Participation and e-Taxation, while 12 regular paper sessions address the topics of: e-Diffusion, e-Democracy, Methodologies, Models and Frameworks, Implementation Planning, Implementation Strategies, Social Applications, Other Applications, Standards and Guidelines, Legal and Regulatory Issues, Infrastructure and Maturity Models.