The Electronic Governance and Open Society: Challenges in Eurasia conference for the first time was held in the framework of the Internet and Modern Society forum in 2014 and became the first international event for experts in the field of e-government held in Russia. Dmitry Trutnev, the deputy director of the ITMO University Center for e-government technologies, says that the conference brought together representatives of the academic community, companies that create solutions in the area of e-government, public organizations and authorities. In 2015, many foreign experts have confirmed their participation in advance.
"The benefit of such events is that they bring together the theorists and practitioners, including those from different countries. The fact that the topic of e-government is much wider than it is perceived in our country became a surprise for many people. In Russia it is skewed towards electronic methods of interaction between the state and citizens but the need to change the processes inside government bodies to electronic platforms remains behind the scenes," Dmitry Trutnev says.
According to Dmitry Trutnev, the autumn conference agenda depends on what materials will be sent by researchers. However, one can say in advance that some of the issues of interaction between society and e-government are particularly important: for example, the divergence of strategy of development of the information society with a program of state bodies informatization, the prospects for the development of open government, and so on.
"We see a deceleration of progress in this area. The taken decisions sometimes are more like a simulation than a real interaction with citizens and work with information. At the same time PR campaigns are carried out and they create a false sense that we are on the right track," Dmitry Trutnev says.
Following the first conference a collection of articles was published which will soon be indexed by Scopus and Web of Science platforms. In addition, many of the authors were asked to rework the material for publication in the International journal of electronic government.
"This year, we will go the same path, but much faster: we expect that the collection of articles will be published before the conference. The last time the collection was published four months after the end of the conference, but this time we know all the nuances and bottlenecks. I think that six weeks between the end of the articles reception and the start of the conference will be enough for the publication of the collection," Dmitry Trutnev says.
We add that the information about the conference and registration form are available on the official website EGOSE-2015.