On the 25th of February the Ambassador of the Republic of Italy, Mrs. Rosa Maria Chicco Ferraro, has visited e-Governance Academy (eGA). The Members of the Board of eGA, Mr. Ivar Tallo and Mr. Arvo Ott presented an overview of eGA's historical aspects, competences and contemporary programms and services. The possibility of cooperation has been discussed.
The ambassador of Burkina Faso in Denmark, Mrs. Monique Ilboudo, and the ambassador of Angola in Sweden, Mr. Domingos Culolo, visited e-Governance Academy (eGA) on the 25th of February. The Management Board members of eGA, Mr. Arvo Ott and Mr. Ivar Tallo, provided the quests with thorough presentation of eGA’s services, competences and expertise. Likewise the success of Estonia in implementing ICT technologies in education, government and governance has been stressed. The case of Estonia is capable of encouraging African countries to take a step forward towards ICT paradigm knowing that wealth is not the decisive factor in country’s development.
The Member of the Executive Board of e-Governance Academy, Mr. Ivar Tallo, has recently come back from Tripoli, Libya, where he provided advice and assistance in the field of data security and e-government at the General Information Authority. The visit took place under the Technical Assistance and Information Exchange (TAIEX) instrument managed by the Directorate-General Enlargement of the European Commission. Mr. Ivar Tallo was accompanied during his visit by the Director of the National Information System, Dr. Abdurraouf El Bibas, and the coordinator of the TAIEX in Libya, Dr. Dia Sadek Abouhadra.

From 17 to 18 of February the Director General of the IT Divistion of COMESA (The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa - promoting regional economic integration through trade and investment), Mr.Sherin Shoukry and her adviser Mrs. Isabel Nshimi visited eGA and signed the Memorandum of Understandings between COMESA and eGA.
The development of e-government in member states of COMESA is one of the organization's priorities. COMESA expects eGA to share its experience and competence on development of e-government with 18 member states of COMESA.
The Europe-based Annual International IFIP (The International Federation for Information Processing) e-government conference (EGOV) is one of three core conferences, which present the state of the art in the study domains of eGovernment and eGovernance. Over the years, through the organisation of its Europe-based conferences, the EGOV community has provided important guidance for research and development in this fast-moving domain of study.
The IFIP e-government conference brings together leading researchers and professionals from across the globe and from a number of disciplines.
For more information visit EGOV Community web-page
Last week the CEO of eGA, Mr. Arvo Ott, and the e-governance adviser, Mr. Steven Segaert, discussed the possibility of setting up an e-Governance Academy in Sfax, Tunisia. The Tunisian Academy is planned to become a knowledge center serving the Northern African region and French-speaking countries in Africa. eGA assists with strategic advice and concrete help in curricula-building.
The choice of the location is justified by the fact that Sfax is the home to a "technopole" business site, which offers infrastructure and services to companies active in the field of ICT and multimedia. Hence, the Sfax Technopole (http://www.sfax-itctechnopark.com.tn/) positions itself as the place to be when it comes to technical innovation, and the subject of ICT in government is of strategic importance in that respect.
Sfax e-gov Academy should initiate research, provide insight in e-governance issues to companies, and help government to create the necessary knowledge base and organisational infrastructure to advance know-how and, thereby, implementation of the current Tunisian e-government strategy.
The initiative is currently supported by the European Investment Bank (http://www.eib.org/), which also provided the necessary support to create the Sfax Technopole.
e-Governance Academy starts work on the customization of the Participatory budgeting for Estonian local authorities with the support of the Open Estonia Foundation.
The project would attempt to work out the suitable methodology for Estonia, taking into account the wide-spread use of the ID cards. “Internationally, we welcome cooperation projects that involve the idea of the participatory budgeting”, said the Member of the executive board, Mr. Ivar Tallo “as we would like to compare the existing practices. Domestically, we hope, the idea would provide a cure against extreme party politics and support civil society development.”
On the 3rd of February the representatives of the Serbian Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Society, Nebojsa Vasiljevis and Petar P. Janjic, as well as the director of the National Information Technology and Internet Agency, Damir Baralic, visited e-Governance Academy with the aim of learning Estonian experience in the field of interoperability system (x-Road). More specifically, the main topic concerned the suitability of the x-Road framework for implementation in Serbia.
The Personal Secretary to the Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh,
Mr. Nazrul Islam Khan, has undertaken a study visit to Estonia on the 27th to 29th of January. e-Governance Academy has given him a warm welcome and accompanied the official during his stay in Estonia. The main topics under deliberation included Estonian e-Government solutions, ICT in the service of e-democracy, ICT education-exporting Tiger Leap abroad, Estonian ID card and e-elections. Among other institutions visited by the official were State Chancellery, Democenter, the Tiger Leap Foundation.
A warm welcome combined with the cold snow shower has contributed to the success of Mr. Khan’s study visit.

From 21to 25 Septmebre eGA hosted the participants of International Master Program on e-Gov of Technical University of Lausanne (Switzerland).