For many years, this has been one of the major operational problems of Slovak state institutions. Even in the 21st century we have to constantly provide authorities with the information that the public administration already has. Even though other developed countries relieved their citizens from unnecessary walks to offices long time ago, Slovakia has not been so successful until recently. In September, however, Deputy Prime Minister’s Office for Investments and Informatization of the Slovak Republic launched the project Over.si, which starts a new era. In just a few months of operation, this first anti-bureaucracy portal has shown positive results: eliminates a duty to stand in queues in public offices and saves people´s money. It has met the most important criterion of the prestigious competition, ITAPA 2018, and became the absolute winner in the jury's vote.

For the second time in history an award for The best project of V4 countries´ digitalization has been granted; projects from neighboring countries that contribute to the development of digitization and informatization of their country could also sign up for the competition.

The Best Project of Digitalization of Society in Slovakia

1st PLACE

The absolute winner of the ITAPA 2018 Award is a project of the DXC Technology Slovakia company, prepared for the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office for Investments and Informatization of the Slovak Republic. The Over.si project will save a lot of money for the citizens, as well as hours that would otherwise be wasted by waiting at the public administration office. "This is the key role of eGovernment, which despite many years of effort and a lot of resources invested, has been evading its fulfillment.  However this has come to an end thanks to the anti-bureaucracy portal www.oversi.gov.sk, "said Richard Raši, Deputy Prime Minister for Investment and Informatization of the Slovak Republic. What successes did the portal achieve in less than three months? In the first phase of the project, more than 16,000 staff of public authorities have been given a tool how to obtain official data without the need to trouble the citizens and the decline of burden is already enormous. “In just one month since the launch, the project has secured more than 10,000 listings and printouts that would have to be presented by the people themselves, were it not for this project. This corresponds to approximately 12 percent of the total bureaucratic burden on citizens. Thus, the project represents a large and clearly defined leap to remove about 1 million of the various listings and printouts that citizens have to provide to the authorities annually, “explained Zdenko Böhmer, DXC Technology Slovakia CEO. Since September, the Slovaks no longer have to carry excerpts from the Trade Register or Ownership documents, since January 2019 this is going to be true also for the Criminal records. Mr. Raši´s Office also plans to cut the administrative burden on citizens in the second round in regard to confirming the school attendance or confirming the arrears of social and health insurance or taxes.

2nd PLACE

Waiting is annoying. All the more if you are sitting in a room with coughing patients and a doctor is constantly disturbed by knocking of people who have come just after the medical prescription or the results. This is how it looks today at many doctors´ waiting rooms and that's exactly what we cannot stand. Project eČasenka (effective waiting room) solves the problem of a crowded waiting room simply, elegantly and efficiently. "Our system allows relatively low IT-skilled patients to sign up, request an order ticket and then wait at home. Or just send a request for a medical prescription. The system automatically organizes and notifies people so they have to spend only a minimum of time in the waiting room, "explains Patrik Stieranka, the author and the developer of this project. Project eČasenka won the second place of the ITAPA 2018 Award. The jury has been convinced by more than 1.8 million patients who have used eČasenka services over the past three years as well as their 98% satisfaction rate.

This project also won the Radio Slovakia Prize which has been awarded for the fifth time by Radio Slovakia's listeners.

3rd PLACE

UVOstat.sk and its author, Miroslav Babič, take the third place. The project collects and links information about public procurement in one place so that the public can easily find out where public finances flow. "The project brings together several public resources (Gazette, ECS, Central register of contracts, tenders, Register of public sector´s partners, Register of economic subjects, Register of legal entities), providing a tool without which the users would have to browse through various sources and assemble bits and pieces together," Miroslav Babič says and adds that the portal is used by the public with the traffic about 7,000 people per month.

 

ITAPA Award V4 - The Best Project of Digitalization of Society in V4 region

In Brno, residents and visitors can take care of any services in the comfort of their home - only with the help of a payment card. This is ensured by the Brno iD project, whose idea and implementation impressed the jury and therefore Brno iD received The Best V4 Digitization Project Award. "Once the electronic city account has been set up, residents and visitors to Brno can not only buy tickets, but can use their card to prove their purchase to ticket inspectors, borrow books in the city library or buy entertainment programs at the zoo. In addition, through this solution we also provide benefits to exemplary citizens. One of the benefits, for example, is obtaining a subsidy for the purchase of an annual public transportation ticket, "said Zuzana Ondroušková, Economic Director of the Dopravní podnik města Brno.

 

SPECIAL AWARD OF THE ORGANIZER

Cviker - The digital platform for urban planning has received a special award of the organizer for the innovative help to the city of Poprad. With this application residents can see all planned new developments or changes in their real world environment and, if they are interested, they can comment on them as well.

SPECIAL JURY AWARD

The national project IT Academy of Slovakia has won a special jury award, even though it is rather an educational project than an IT project itself. But without activities like IT Academy, no IT projects would ever come into existence.

About ITAPA Awards: A renowned competition announced by ITAPA. The evaluation consists of two rounds. In the first round jury selects the five best projects and the selection is done by way of preferential points allocation. Those are assigned by each juror. The jurors may assign a maximum of 10 points at their discretion, but the maximum points per project are 3 points. When evaluating and assigning preferential points, a number of criteria are taken into account, such as verification and realistic assessment of the project, project objective, impact, innovation, as well as technical implementation or communication. In the second round, the jurors evaluate only 5 selected - nominated projects. At the joint meeting after the debate the final ranking of projects will be determined from the 1st to the 3rd. The evaluation committee has the right not to distribute all the winning positions to projects, for example, if it has doubts about the quality or representativeness of the projects.

About ITAPA: For 17 years, ITAPA (Information Technology and Public Administration) has brought new impetus and inspiration to Slovak eGovernment, becoming the top congress and discussion platform not only for the IT community. The cycle of ITAPA events, hosted by high-level government officials regularly, is made up of several prestigious events. Among the most important are the Spring ITAPA conference, which specializes in topics of local or European focus and autumn two-day international congress. It focuses on supporting the latest eGovernment trends and digitization solutions from around the world, ranking among the most important events of its kind. The goal of ITAPA is to create an independent platform where key national and business leaders discuss and present inspirational ideas and projects in the field of digitization. Every year, dozens of renowned speakers from Slovakia and the world, hundreds of guests and significant media will take part in it.