Leading for the People, Accelerating with the Digital – Welcome Keynote at the SCIC-13 2025

Описание: Professor Alexander Prosser, representing both the Austrian Computer Society (OCG) and the Central and Eastern European eGov Days (CEE eGov Days), addressed the audience with a formal welcome on the occasion of the 2025 edition of CEE eGov Days being held for the first time in conjunction with the Smart Cities International Conference in Bucharest. He briefly introduced the Austrian Computer Society as a non-commercial, non-partisan scientific body, underlining its dual role as a national operator of key digital literacy and certification programs and as an independent voice in ICT policy debates.

Professor Prosser outlined OCG’s main activities: operating the ICDL (International Certificate of Digital Literacy, successor of the ECDL) for school pupils in Austria, with around 100,000 tests annually; organizing the Bebras/Biber of Informatics competition, attracting tens of thousands of schoolchildren; and lobbying successfully for informatics to be introduced as an optional subject in the Austrian high school exit exam. He also emphasized OCG’s function as a fully qualified certification body for NIS2 and ISO 27000 standards in information security - activities which, together with various projects, finance the organization’s independence from both commercial and governmental interests and allow it to take principled, sometimes “uncomfortable,” positions in front of public authorities.

Situating OCG in a wider regional ecosystem, Professor Prosser described it as a hub for knowledge transfer to Central and South-Eastern Europe, noting recent involvement in founding the Kosovo Computer Society, as well as its role as a scientific publisher with a publication cooperation agreement with ACM, its “sister society” in the United States. He placed particular emphasis on the “Women in ICT” agenda, calling the current 31% share of women in the Austrian ICT workforce both “dismal” and a waste of talent, and outlining targeted initiatives such as mentoring programs and girls-only programming camps designed to correct this imbalance.

Turning to his own role, Professor Prosser explained that he serves on the OCG board and as its treasurer in an honorary capacity, while his salaried position is as a professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), where he teaches in an English-language Master’s program in supply chain management. He took the opportunity to thank WU for financing the publication of the conference proceedings in the ACM Digital Library and acknowledged the OCG staff for their organizational support.

Finally, Professor Prosser traced the history of the Central and Eastern European eGov Days series, founded in 2003 by Professor Roland Traunmüller and hosted over the years in Vienna, Budapest, Prague, and Ljubljana before becoming associated with the Ludovika University of Public Service in Budapest. In line with its tradition of moving across the region, the series has now come to Bucharest and SNSPA. He expressed his gratitude to Professors Diana-Cornelia Iancu and Cătălin Vrabie for hosting the joint event and for the warm reception, concluding by once again welcoming participants on behalf of both the Austrian Computer Society and CEE eGov Days before handing the floor back to the local organizers.

Follow the Smar-EDU Hub to stay informed and deepen your understanding of what smart cities are and how they are evolving.

#SmartCities #DigitalGovernment #AI #PublicAdministration #CEEeGovDays #SNSPA #Bucharest #PalaceOfParliament