The ENGAGE Project on Open Data started in Athens

An Infrastructure for Open, Linked Governmental Data Provision towards Research Communities and Citizens

The Kick-off meeting of ENGAGE eInfrastructures Research Project on Open Data was held in NTUA, Athens on 20-21 June 2011.  The Kick-off meeting was held in the form of open workshop, also attended by European Commission representatives and Public sector officials from Greece. 

The main goal of ENGAGE project is the deployment and use of an advanced service infrastructure, incorporating distributed and diverse public sector information resources as well as data curation, semantic annotation and visualisation tools, capable of supporting scientific collaboration and governance-related research from multi-disciplinary scientific communities, while also empowering the deployment of open governmental data towards citizens.

The ENGAGE consortium comprises of 9 partners from Luxembourg, Germany, Greece, Israel, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, with an excellent track record both in the eInfrastructures and the Governance domain (NTUA, Fraunhofer FOKUS, STFC, University of Aegean, TU DELFT) including world leaders in cloud infrastructures (IBM, Microsoft, Intrasoft International) and a large network of scientific data diffusion (EUROCris). Following on Open Data initiatives throughout Europe, ENGAGE has established links with numerous National and International public sector organisations, research communities, open data experts and standardisation fora. The project is supported by the Greek GEANT node GRNET, providing the infrastructure for service provision.

The ENGAGE Project core team, in NTUA

How to get involved ? 

Join the ENGAGE project group at: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/ENGAGE-eInfrastructures-Project-3867416 and declare your Public Sector information sources, follow the discussions and meet other Open Data Experts 

Find more about the project at: http://www.engage-project.eu

Tax offices productivity in Greece for 1st half of 2011

Completion of cases by tax offices across Greek regions

The following map visualises data on the efficiency of tax offices across Greece in handling cases assigned to them by the central offices of the Ministry of Finance for the first six months of 2011. These cases are related to natural and legal persons that have been identified through intersections, tax delinquent behavior and other targeted actions. 

Each spot indicates the percentage of cases closed after the completion of the above steps by the tax office, of each specific location. Three different colors displayed on the map represent the three discrete ranges of percentages that have been set, as levels of completion: 

• Red (107 Tax Offices): minimum productivity (less than 33% of all open cases were processes within 6 months).
• Yellow (162 Tax Offices) : medium productivity (between 33% and 66%)
• Green (18 Tax Offices): higher productivity (more than 66% of all open cases)

The global average for all 287 Tax Offices is 36%, which means that it takes on average 18 months for the completion of a case. 

The percentages of completion have been published on the website of the General Secretary of Information Systems and are updated on a daily basis: http://www.gsis.gr/doyaudit/ 

Uni Aegean and Fraunhofer FOKUS collaborate on Mobile Development

It all started within the "Software Engineering" class of 2010-2011, where we set the goal to develop e-Government apps for Mobile Platforms, the prize for the best project being a visit to FOKUS premises in Berlin, in cooperation with the FAME group.

Two members of the winning team, with the Greek Municipalities for Windows Phone 7 application,

(http://social.zune.net/redirect?type=phoneApp&id=664febdd-b22f-e011-854c-00237de2db9e ) visited Berlin, on May 2011. You may see all the applications at http://www.icsd.aegean.gr/is-lab. 

Ilias Dimopoulos and Thanassis Garaliakos, reported from Berlin:

"At Fraunhofer Fokus - it’s one of the buildings that you rarely see. At the western suburbs of Berlin, Fraunhofer Fokus cooperates with famous universities around the world developing on several projects. PADGETS (www.padgets.eu) is one of them, run by Information and Communication Systems Engineering Department of the University of Aegean.

In this visit we met up with Robert Kleinfield and after a long discussion, an analysis was made about  PADGETS - an extensive update on the requirements of the project.  It was required for us to develop ideas for mobile platform applications that will make it easy for citizens to link up to the PADGETS platform and participate in policy making.

After a few days of  technology transfer, experimentation and idea exchange, we now have to further develop on mobile apps ideas and discuss with  Fraunhofer Fokus. If these ideas satisfy the Fokus committee, then a new cooperation will be revealed for us and Uni Aegean !

Our days in Berlin came to an end with a visit to a traditional German restaurant, and after that a relaxing outing to a local bar, enjoying a local beer. The rest is now up to the committee.

However, our visit to Berlin and to the institute will be an unforgettable experience !"

Ilias Dimopoulos, Robert Kleinfeld (FOKUS) and Thanassis Garaliakos (Uni Aegean)

Uni Aegean IS Lab - Seeking for researchers

IS Lab Request for Collaboration on RTD Projects

The Information Systems Lab of the University of Aegean is seeking for junior, senior and expert-level researchers, for collaborating under research and technological development projects in an international environment. Occupation types, areas of needed expertise and workplace locations cover a wide spectrum of opportunities. Areas of expertise are listed as:

• Policy and Legal Modelling 
• Information Management and Visualisation
• Electronic Governance models and systems
• Future Internet (Internet of Things, Internet of Services)
• Modelling and Simulation of complex phenomena in Businesses and Society
• Web 2.0 technologies and services (Social Media, Semantics, Collaborative Services)
• Mobile Devices
• Service Enginneering
• Unified Process and Data Modelling
• Interoperability and Cloud Infrastructures
• ICT policy and roadmapping
• Data Mining and Text Mining Technologies
• Specific Market / Country knowledge

For any information and contact details please see http://www.icsd.aegean.gr/is-lab 

To indicate your interest please apply at: http://bit.ly/iZuzZy 

Digital Agenda 2020 : Announcement of Action Plan in Athens

The Greek contribution to the European Digital Agenda 2020 was announce in public, on 1st June 2011, in the DAIS Conference Centre in Athens.  More than 30 actions in 6 main areas (infrastructures, security, education & research, interoperability and citizen participation) were presented.  The Digital Agenda 2020 proposed actions will now enter into an electronic, nation-wide deliberation process.

You may download the proposed actions at: http://www.digitalgreece2020.gr

With Charis Alexopoulos and Aggeliki Androutsopoulou from Uni Aegean