Danube conference in Vienna/Bratislava 19-21 April 2010
Workshop 6 "Digital agenda for the Danube region"
Moderator: Mr. Colin Wolfe, Head of unit for Territorial cooperation, DG REGIO
Key note speaker: Mr Johann Sollgruber, DG Regional Policy
Key note speaker: Mr Christian Kittl, ALADIN network, Austria
Key note speaker: Mr Rainer Haselberger, City of Vienna
Key note speaker: Mr Peter Druga, Ministry for Information Society, Slovakia
Rapporteur: Eva Lieber, programme manager for Germany, DG Regional policy
The Directorate General for Digital Agenda of the European Commission provided the following data regarding broadband in the Danube area.
The broadband coverage in the Danube area:
-National coverage: Whereas the EU-27 average is 93% some new Member States in the Danubearea (RO, BG, PL) have a rate below 70%.
-Rural coverage: Whereas the EU-27 average is 77% somenew Member States in the Danube area(BG, RO, PL and SK) have a rate between 20-50%.
Broadband penetration in the Danube area:
-Whereas the EU-27 average is 24% countries in the Danube area have a penetration rate between 12-22 % (only Germany has a higher rate of almost 30%).
The Digital Agenda for Europe is a flagship initiative of the EU 2020 strategy. The new digital strategy for 2010-2015, A European Digital Agenda for the New Digital Consumer,aims to provide all European citizens with high-speed Internet access, creating a single digital market, reinforcing online security and fostering research and innovation.
The EU broadband targets are:
broadband access for all by 2013,
access for all to much higher internet speeds (30 MB or above) by 2020,
50% or more of European households subscribing to internet connections above 100 MBps.
Areas of work to reach these targets are among others:
1)Digital single market: borderless web services and digital content market; clear rights regime and multi-territorial licenses,
2)Reforming the research and innovation Funds to reinforce Europe’s technology strengths,
3) Facilitating the use of Structural Funds.
Actions to be taken for Member States:
1)Drawing up operational high speed internet strategies,
2)Using public funding, including the SF, on areas not fully served by private investments,
3)Establishing a legal framework for co-ordinating public works to reduce costs of network rollout.
There is a great need to reinforce regional capacity to plan, manage and implement broadband actions. The lack of experience, lack of skills, poor coordination among different ministries and different level of government tends to undermine the capacity to execute expenditure. Therefore, MS and regions should reinforce exchanging of good practices and benchmarking activities.
Next steps:
-Mid may: publication of EU Digital Agenda
-End of June: publication of EU Broadband Strategy
-January 2011: EU event on Broadband in Rural Areas in Brussels
Mr Christian Kittlpresented us the ALADIN network = Alpe, Adria, Danube universities initiative, which was created in October 2002 as an international network with more than 10 participating countries in the Danube area
-to share common ideas and knowledge in teaching and research activities in the field of e-commerce,
-to cooperate in creating mobility of students and professors, offering common lectures, creating virtual teams of students and professors from different universities,
-in order to harmonize global and international activities of e-commerce.
The ALADIN network supports an open innovation approach, especially the Living Lab concept, to develop the Danube region’s innovation system. It is a concept for R&D and innovation to bring different stakeholders together in a co-creative way. Living Labs aim at promoting PPPP = public private partnerships including people.
Furthermore, ALADIN aims at applying the Living Lab concept and methodology at regional level in the Danube area. Applying the Living Lab approach to build smart cities is strongly promoted at EU level. The logical next step is to proceed to the level of "Smart Regions". An event to Living Labs will be organised during the HU presidency in the first half of 2011. Special attention should be paid to cross-border partnership in the region and trust building measures among all stakeholders.
Mr Rainer Haselberger from the Vienna city administration explained us how to use information and communication technologies for intelligent transport systemsfor example for traffic forecasts; as well as routing and logistics information services. Information is collected from private and public sources by using a graph integration platform. This services are available on the Internet for all users for free (shortly also on iPhone). The system is applied in Vienna but should be used in future all over Austria.
Conclusions:Intelligent transport systems require
1) an integrated comprehensive transport system information management based on a joint graph
2) planning: regional and urban transport planning to e-government processes, guidance, logistics, control, monitoring and quality assessment.
Mr Peter Druga, representative of the Slovak Government stressed that there are already many international organisations and programmes with special focus on the Danube area. Therefore, there should be no duplication of existing cross border activities. Potential areas of new activities are among others: e-government with pilot cross border projects; e-inclusion e.g. to improve life of handicapped people; e-health; e-culture; e-transport, e-environment etc.
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