SECOVIA project promotes jointly developed, advanced IT solutions that harvest the benefits of cloud computing to support access to shared public IT services, resources & infrastructures and tackle the digital divide among SEE territories.
SECOVIA is a South East Europe (SEE) Transnational Cooperation Programme project and it started as scheduled in 1st october 2012. It is co-funded by EU and by the states of the participating partners. The project shall address the problem of digital divide among territorial administrations of South East Europe (SEE) area. Currently, SEE suffers from great inadequacies in the provision of eGovernment services to citizens (G2C) and businesses (G2B). This cohesion gap sets economic and administrative barriers that hinder access of citizens and businesses to digital public services. As a result, regional development and competitiveness in SEE remains an unfulfilled potential requiring cross-border policy action. On the other hand, virtualised IT platforms & infrastructures offer a strong potential to deliver cost-effective, scalable digital public services and to unlock regional growth and competitiveness, and as a result EC advocates for a common EU Cloud Strategy as a means to help governments and citizens to access and develop advanced online services.
In this scope SECOVIA promotes jointly developed, advanced virtual accessibility solutions that address the geographic and socio-economic specificities of South East Europe by harvesting the benefits of cloud computing to support access to shared public IT services, resources and infrastructures and by setting the ground for joint strategies, common policies and transnational collaboration in tackling the digital divide among territorial administrations.
Primary goals
- Assessing the current status regarding virtual accessibility needs, infrastructures and public services in SEE
- Identifying, analyzing and exchanging of best practices and assessing of the needs and views of SEE stakeholders on shared, public IT services, resources and infrastructures in SEE
- Exploring the feasibility, set up requirements and roll-out deployment plan for a proposed transnational provider of shared virtualized IT resources and infrastructures (IaaS) and internet-based platforms and applications for digital public services (PaaS/SaaS)
- Improving public and private investment policies
- Promoting public consultation, building consensus and formulating common positions on setting up joint, cross-border, inter-institutional cloud solution providers to serve the needs of territorial administrations
- Increasing the skills of public administration staff and representatives