Aveiro Digital Region of Portugal

Acronym of the case:

AvDi-PT

Web address of the case:

http://www.aveiro-digital.pt

Country of the case:

Portugal

City/region:

Aveiro

Posting Date:

24 May 2007

Last Edited Date:

02 July 2009

Author:

José Anjos (Aveiro Region Intermunicipal Community / Aveiro Digital)

regional | rural | savad

Type of initiative

Network

Case Abstract

The Aveiro Digital has a long history of progress towards the Information Society. Managed by the AssociaÃ§Ã£o Aveiro Digital and the AssociaÃ§Ã£o de MunicÃpios da Ria, it is a regional system established with the objective to promote the social, economic and cultural development of the Ria Region through the use of ICT in the every-day life of the University and Schools, Companies, Social and Cultural Institutions, Hospitals, Health Centres and Public Administration. Through Aveiro Digital Program 11,799 persons have been trained to use ICT based services and applications. To promote inclusiveness, a network of 95 free public internet Centers, with 517 computers is already providing 498,000 hours of annual usage to 28,390 registered users. The Aveiro Digital Program has been an opportunity to demonstrate how citizens, private companies, third sector and public administration are able to improve services working and learning together on a confident network basis.

Description of the case

Domain

eInclusion

Topic

Digital literacy and competences | Geographical eInclusion | ICT and community development

Sector

Communication (infrastructure) | Culture and Media | Education, Science and Research | Employment | Local/Regional Community Development

Date

January 2003 to January 2006

Date operational

January 2003

Target Users

Any citizen | Disadvantaged/deprived communities

Target Users Description

The Aveiro Digital Program, covering a region with 350,000 inhabitants, has been developed during the last four years and involved 326 organizations and over a 1,000 people worked together in 74 ICT projects.

Scope

Regional (sub-national)

Status

Ended

Language(s)

Portuguese

Policy Context and Legal Framework

Aveiro Digital has been conceived under the Portuguese national Information Society Programme (POSI, aligned with the Lisbon Strategy Agenda). Aveiro Digital is a special Portuguese case, because its 1st phase (1998-2000), geographically limited to the City of Aveiro, was a pioneer initiative launched under the Minister of Science action to promote the Information Society in Portugal. Using its lessons learnt as a starting point, a new national Program ("Cidades e RegiÃµes Digitais") was launched in 2002, and since then 25 ICT Regional projects have been funded. In its second phase (2003-2006), the Aveiro Digital Programme covered all the Ria Region, where there still are great development disparities. The special and integrated nature of Aveiro Digital Program addresses the objectives and goals stated in the Riga Declaration: regarding the needs of older workers and elderly people, reducing geographical digital divides, enhancing e-accessibility and usability, improving digital literacy and competences, promoting cultural diversity and inclusive eGovernment. Concerning the objective axes of the European strategy i2010 â€“ A European Information Society for growth and employment, Aveiro Digital Program is aligned with the objective 3: to foster inclusion, better public services and quality of life through the use of ICT. The Aveiro Digital Program including those goals also aimed at filling the regional development gaps, by transferring knowledge and practices among organizations and people living in the region and by ensuring a balanced regional investment.

Project Size and Implementation

Type of initiative

Training and education

Overall Implementation approach

Public administration

Technology choice

Mainly (or only) open standards

Funding source

Public funding EU

Project size

Implementation: Larger than €10,000,000

Implementation and Management Approach

The Aveiro Digital Programme management model ensures the empowering of the regional development agents in the region, thus involving all the private, public and third sectors. - The operational management of the overall Program was embedded within the â€œDigital Communityâ€ Area. With 6 horizontal Projects, this area was under the direct responsibility of the Executive Commission of the Program, because the projects related with global management, basic ICT training / certification and to ensure the major goal of providing universal ICT access to all citizens wherever they live. - The operational management of the vertical projects in the other seven Intervention Areas was under the responsibility of the respective agents. Through Public Bid the regional agents, acting in small consortia, presented their proposals to fulfil the Programme objectives and goals. 72 vertical Projects were selected. The regional consortia commit the project execution before the Executive Commission of the Aveiro Digital Program, under written contracts. All the management tasks were supported by a web based system - SAVAD, ensuring the technical and financial follow-up, according to the national and EU legislation. It also facilitated all the bureaucratic data treatment, producing the needed reports to the central funding boards.

Technology solution

The Local Administration Government services were designed to offer integrated back-office tools, thus allowing better efficiency of both face to face and online services. Specific information services are multi-channel provided: face-to-face, printed format, telephone, internet and a regional bill-board network. The Museums of the Regions invested not only in digital archives and virtual tours but also in special appliances to be used by visitors with special needs. Specific educational services were developed to ensure family and schools networking, providing tools to be used on line at home and to be offline shared among the children in the classrooms.

Impact, innovation and results

Impact

Besides the innovative services created, the novelty lies mainly on the methodology applied: - Based on a confident network involving private, public and third sectors, socially committed with the region. - Managed at a regional level under a national contract program stating measurable objectives and continued public evidence. - Planning, developing and evaluation tasks timely under rigorous control of outcomes and resources assigned. - Regular concertation initiatives sharing practices among similar organizations and among all on a yearly basis. - Web based distributed and secure system, providing technical and financial project management tools and operations at the local, regional and central levels

Track record of sharing

In 2001 the Aveiro Digital "Road Map of the Aveiro Internet Space" reporting experience and methods to install and to run Internet Spaces has been the basis to launch the national initiative - Internet Spaces. At national level great efforts were made to publicise the plans, methods, results and evaluation reports, and all the documents were made available on the website. On a regular basis all the initiatives and results have been publicized through the national media. Aveiro Digital has been presented in 28 congresses and seminars, 3 TV shows and 3 national exhibitions. In the scope of mutual cooperation agreement, the Aveiro Digital management System (SAVAD) IPR was shared with Madeira Digital and Vale e Mar Digital and offered to the national boards as a distributed secure System to insure technical and financial project management under the EU and national regulation. In the framework of technical and social research projects and post graduation studies in the Portuguese Universities, the Aveiro Digital has been chosen 15 times as case study and several R&D papers were produced and referred in international scientific publications. In October 2003, in S.Paulo, Brazil, Aveiro Digital was presented at CIberCITY Congress and is now being a case study in the Recife and Bahia Universities. In October 2005, at the Valencia Congress, Aveiro Digital was presented at the CIUMED (Network for the Promotion of Medium-sized Cities in South Western Europe) and in April 2007, Aveiro Digital was awarded in Huelva, as a CIUMED good practice. In 2007 spring, the Aveiro Digital Book+Video were sent to the related official boards at international (120) and national levels (2500).In June 2007, Aveiro Digital participated at the IANIS Bilbao Conference, to disseminate the results achieved and to share methods and practices with other European partners.

Lessons learnt

Lesson 1 - Sustainable investments to qualify people and organizations need for a broad social public, private and third sectors commitment on a confident network basis. Lesson 2 - Efficient management models of regional investment programmes should be based on a two folded practice: measurable objectives and transparent planning and decision criteria. Lesson 3 â€“ Learning networking systems are highly efficient in promoting the qualification, inspiring innovation, fostering regional opportunities, filling regional development gaps and making people and organizations more open and competitive.

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practice Aveiro Digital Region of Portugal