Introduction to the Conference

• Rationale 
• Conference 
• Participants 
• Contributions

Rationale

Several years after the acceptance of Electronic Government by governments worldwide as part of their reform initiatives, there is a growing recognition that over reliance on technology, insufficient collaboration in government, lack of emphasis on building human capacity and inadequate public consultation, all limit possible benefits of such initiatives.

As a result, the focus has been shifting:

• from Electronic Government to technology enabled improvements in Government operations
• to Electronic Governance improvements in interactions between Government, Non Government and Civil Society stakeholders.

Under the new focus, it is no longer acceptable to let technical or organizational issues drive Electronic Governance initiatives alone. Instead, a multi-disciplinary, multi-stakeholder and community oriented approach is required.

Conference

The 1st International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV2007) took place in Macao SAR, China, during 10 -13 December 2007. The conference brought together practitioners, developers and researchers from government, academia, industry and non governmental organizations to share the latest findings in the theory and practice of Electronic Governance. In a diverse international setting for networking and community-building, ICEGOV2007 fostered a multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder approach in addressing the challenges of Electronic Governance. The conference and the future annual series will remain as a platform for 'state of the art information sharing machanism' in practice, technology and research on various aspects of Electronic Governance.

Participants

The conference provided a unique opportunity for close interactions between three categories of participants:

• Government participants described concrete initiatives, lessons learned and the existing challenges. In return, they learned about the latest research findings, and how such results can be complemented into their needs by industry, non-governmental organizations and other governments to address the challenges they face.
• Industry and non governmental participants demonstrated concrete technological, organizational and societal solutions for governments. In return, they learned about the real challenges governments face and the latest research findings available for their use in crafting solutions.
• Academic participants presented models, theories and frameworks which enhanced the understanding of Electronic Governance and upon which concrete solutions for governments can be built. In return, they learned about problems faced by governments and could gain access to concrete cases, identify opportunities to implement and deploy research prototypes.

Contributions

ICEGOV2007 encompassed five formats of contributions:

• tutorials, invited talks, panels and workshops (by invitation) and;
• regular papers (by submission)

It also included a series of social events for networking and community building.