Dr. Peter Thomond, Dr. Yianna Vovides

Dr. Peter Thurmond, Managing Partner, Clever Together

Dr. Yianna Vovides, Director Instructional Design, Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning at George Washington University

Arriving in time for Tuesday morning session maybe tough for some, after a late night out for many conference panelists and attendees.

The first day of the Global Forum 2010 concluded with a gala dinner at the US French Embassy, “Maison de France.”

Guests first enjoyed a cocktail hour with hors d’oeuvres, mingling with International leaders and admiring French sculptures and art work in the ballroom.

Afterwards, dinner was served consisting of exquisite french cuisine, with dessert and coffee.

Madeleine Slosteen Thiel from the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovations Systems will moderate the opening session today.

The following is an excerpt from a presentation given by Dr. Dorin Florea at Global Forum/Shaping the Future 2010 conference in Washington, D.C.:

“The use of modern methods of identification, authentication and remote payment via electronic devices is becoming more and more an integral part of our daily life. As technology advances, physical components become smaller, data processing is accelerated, the communication process is faster and the prices of products/services/communications decrease substantially.

Tirgu-Mures mayor Dr. Dorin Florea, left, at Global Forum 2010

The use of Internet and of different electronic communication networks make it possible to replace an increasing number of “in person” activities and classical operations with operations carried out from your personal PC, public information booths or mobile terminals.

The effects of transposing public and private services in electronic version are generally accepted as a means for creating substantial savings both at the level of the private and legal entities and that of the public administration. These effects can even be noted at the level of the national Gross Domestic Product of a country.

The main applications (electronic services) which facilitate savings are the financial-banking payment applications (related to banking cards). The effects of the increase of the number of electronic payments are not limited to the reduction in the number of bureaucratic operations and the fact that processes have become more effective; they also indirectly contribute to the fact that people use more and more bank services and lead to a drastic drop in the underground economy. At present, Romania still registers the highest percent in Europe, 23%, of citizens whose salaries are paid in cash, which stimulates the development of the underground economy that is assessed to represent over 33% from the Gross Domestic Product.”

Yes, information technology (IT) needs to be fast, innovative and practical, but in today’s environmentally sensitive community it also needs to have a minimal carbon footprint.  During the afternoon session “Green & Beyond”, a necessary mixture of public and private agencies discussed the environmental and financial advantages associated with a “green” IT system.  Alyssa Quarforth, of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, highlighted the success of the agency’s energy star program and how it could be applied to the global IT industry through an “energy nutrition label”.  According to Ms. Quarforth, the label would allow consumers to make more informed, intelligent decisions.

Panelists for "Collaborative eProcurement" from left to right: Radu Bogdan Savonea, Chong-Suk Kang, Kathleen Turco, Debra Woodard, Angela Russo, Gian Luigi Albano, and Dora Ruiz(not pictured). Photo by Heather Hodder.

During an afternoon session, speakers from Chile, Romania, US, Italy, and Korea came together to share how their governments are changing their procurement systems for the 21st century. Panelists agreed that moving towards “paperless” eProcurement cuts costs and increases efficiency.

“With the older system, all manual and paper based transactions took a very long time, there was no visibility,” said Deborah Woodward, Director of Logistics Systems, US Department of State. Now, with online programs like Ariba and Momentum Acquisitions, it is a more transparent ” streamlined system.”

Speakers also spoke on how eProcurement increases transparency in transactions, in attempts to reduce corruption.

Dora Ruiz, Head of Monitoring Department, ChileCompra, spoke on the recent moves towards eProcurement in Chile.

Ruiz explained going ” paperless” was in part a reaction to a major corruption scandal in 2003, ” We saw a window of opportunity to enhance transparency in public procurement.”

“The reform was based  on a standard and simple new regulation for the public procurement including a web based marketplace for every agency and local govenment in the country,” added Ruiz.

All Morning Presentations can be found here

Afternoon presentations to be posted Tuesday morning.

-Maria Tsakali, Scientific Officer DG INFSO D3:”Software & Service Architectures and Infrastructures,” European Commission

To learn more about cloud computing, check out the Wikipedia entry. It’s the phrase of the day here at Global Forum 2010.