E-Society Conference Opens

16 November 2006

The Second International Conference e-Society.mk started yesterday, November 15, in Skopje. The conference, which will close on Friday, November 17, 2006, gathers Macedonian and international ICT experts, to facilitate exchange of experiences and create policies based on the latest information related to information society.

Milcin, Janakievski and Drozd at the opening ceremony

The conference was officially opened by Mile Janakievski, Macedonian Minister of Transport and Communications. In his opening remarks, Janakievski reiterated the dedication of the Government to turn Macedonia into a true information society, and announced a series of projects towards that goal, as well as the plans to establish a separate Ministry on Information Society.

�Macedonia has already adopted its national strategy for development of information society. We will now have to implement it properly, and we count on the international community to remain our partner in that area�, said Janakievski.

Natalia Drozd, Head of OSCE Mission to Skopje, emphasized the importance of information in terms of improved quality of life of all citizens. However, she cautioned that information, too, could be susceptible to abuses, therefore it is paramount for the State to join in the efforts to create information society with proper legislation.

Vladimir Milcin, Executive Director of Foundation Open Society Institute Macedonia (FOSIM), in his opening address, emphasized the importance of partnership between the civil, governmental and business sectors for the development of good and successful strategies and policies.

�We shall continue to develop that partnership in the development of information society, for the benefit of all citizens�, said Milcin.

In the following plenary session, dedicated to the best practices in creation of institutional framework, Marijana Vidas-Bubanja, the Chairwoman of the e-SEE Initiative of the Stability Pact for SEE, presented e-SEE initiative and pointed out several problems in its implementation, primarily the lacking capacity and literacy within the public administration to transfer to ICT and e-Governance practices.

Dessi Pefeva, from ISOC Bulgaria, presented the Bulgarian case-study on implementation of e-society platforms and policies. She emphasized the importance of the Government sponsored efforts to equalize the status of FOSS (free and open source software) with the status of proprietary software in Government�s tender procedures, to the effect that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Labour Office web-sites run on FOSS platforms.

Pefeva also added the importance of the completed effort to translate and localize the Creative Commons licenses, thus establishing new standards in protection of intellectual property rights, and especially protection of digital works. Still, Bulgarian experience has not proceeded without problems, especially in terms of introduction of e-governance.

�E-Governance, as it is, is not very popular in Bulgaria, having in mind the costs of various services. For example, the e-signature costs about 100 US Dollars, and not many people are willing to get one�, says Pefeva.

At the end of the first session, Miroslav Jovanovic from the Information Sciences Sector of the Macedonian Ministry of Finance presented the legislative framework on information society in Macedonia and the plans and the work on the adoption of the Law on Information Society.
�e-Society.Mk� Conference is organized by the Metamorphosis Foundation, with the support by OSCE Mission to Skopje and FOSIM.

All presentations from the plenary sessions will be made available online on www.e-society.org.mk.