The Stockholm Challenge began five years ago as a competition among European cities and regions to celebrate their use of ICT in making government, education, and society more open, democratic and accessible. This latest competition evaluated more than 700 projects from around the world, and today the Stockholm Challenge announced its finalists for the 2003-2004 Stockholm Challenge. E-Gov finalists were selected by a six-person international jury on the basis of innovation, user need, accessibility and transferability.
All finalists will be invited to the events in Stockholm on May 10-13 where awards will be presented to the winners. The program includes study visits, networking activities, conference and exhibition programs and an awards ceremony in the Stockholm City Hall, site of the Nobel Prize awards.
E-Government Finalists
Following are the finalists in the e-government category. The complete list of finalists are available on the Stockholm Challenge Web site.
Australia
Communities Online of Brisbane, Australia, encourages groups to use an integrated suite of tools and content to build online communities.
Smart Service Queensland (Australia) A statewide government initiative to deliver integrated services to over 3.7 million citizens.
Canada
Land Information Ontario (Canada) assists the public and private sectors to easily find, access and use geographic information about Ontario for such things as emergency response, precision farming and planning school bus routes.
Smart Capital of Ottawa, Canada, is defining, developing and delivering online services to city residents, public institutions and businesses through collaboration with community partners.
Chile
Public Electronic Procurement Platform is a tool that enables communication and assistance for the overall purchase/sale of goods and services to public organizations and supplier companies for the Chilean State.
Egypt
Egypt's Free Internet Project, provides everyone in Egypt with easy and affordable access to the Internet at the cost of a local call and with no additional subscription fees.
India
Rural Eseva (e services) is a tool to bridge the digital divide and provides access to government and other services to the people living in rural areas of India
The Vijayawada Municipal Corp. of Andhra Pradesh, India, is helping poor and middle-class families access e-governance through interactive television.
Ireland
Dublin's dublin.ie web portal is an information gateway for Dublin City, Ireland where residents can access city services, obtain information, establish their own Web presence and influence policy decisions.
Malaysia
The biometric passport and border control system of Malaysia, is a biometrics-enabled E-passport based on IRIS smart-card technologies, combining microchip, RFID, and biometrics to secure travel documents.
Mexico
The Citizen Portal of Mexico is a government-wide portal that organizes information and services around citizen needs, in a thematic rather than institutional fashion, and concentrates more than 1,500 informative and transactional services from over 100 government institutions.
Portal e-Mexico A project in Mexico to bring citizens into the Information Society.
Singapore
Singapore's BizFile is a radical shift from a manual form-based company filing and registration system to a fully electronic system without the need for signatures.
Solomon Islands
People First Network is a rural networking project that transmits e-mail by short-wave radio to promote rural development and peace-building across the Solomon Islands.
Spain
CAT365 of Barcelona, Spain, is a technological platform for e-government solutions for local, county and provincial governments, from digital signatures to e-payment.
Sweden
The Swedish Virtual Customs Office offers businesses and citizens free supportive Web services in order to facilitate day-to-day business and strengthen Swedish competitiveness.
Uganda
Village Phone Uganda, created new partnerships to provide low-cost telecommunications services to poor rural Ugandans.
United Kingdom
eDemocracy in Sheffield is a three-year UK election modernization program that uses technology to make it easier and more convenient for citizens to engage with government.
United States
COMPASS, the COMmonwealth of Pennsylvania Access to Social Services, (United States) provides online screening and applications for the commonwealth's social service programs.
New York City's 311 Citizen Service Center provides New York City residents, visitors and businesses one telephone number to reach all non-emergency government services.
New York City Register provides management and public access of all property (real and personal) records for the four boroughs of New York City.
Oregon Helps (United States) is a multilingual Web-based tool that checks eligibility for 12 Oregon social service programs simultaneously. It assists citizens who want to privately and confidentially check their potential eligibility before doing the application paperwork.
Washington, D.C., comprehensively expanded and redesigned its government Web portal to provide the District's 575,000 residents, 95,000 businesses, and 19 million visitors faster access to the District's wealth of information and services.
West Virginia's inroads is a Web-based system that extends social services with self-service applications.
