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Read more about Theo Camp's (Chairman of the Board, Berenschot) WCIT 2010 speech 'Overcoming difficulties in Public Private Partnerships in Europe: research results' in the paper: Quantum Leaps in IT Infrastructure - Striking a Balance between Economic Policy and Competition Law.

Videoconferencing is a show case in the showcase area of WCIT 2010.

Visual communications, or videoconferencing, is about getting closer, more focused, and more effective. It is also about reducing costs, travel and environmental impact. In short, it is about better business and a better world.

Video meetings
•    reduce time-consuming commuting and expensive business trips, which saves costs
•    It also allows employees to plan their working days more efficiently
•    helps them strike a better work/life balance
•    will help you build a greener company image and a greener environment.

Talk & Vision, 51% owned by Dutch carrier KPN, offers visual communication solutions to large and medium-sized companies in different markets worldwide. Centered around videoconferencing, the Talk & Vision service portfolio focuses on international service and support, consultancy, training and video meeting services. With MAVIS (Managed Video Services), customers can turn to Talk & Vision for the procurement, control and management of all video communication operations – from desktop solutions to telepresence. As an authorized partner of Cisco, Polycom and TANDBERG, Talk & Vision guarantees independent advice. Talk & Vision has a workforce of 60 and its head office in Linschoten (Netherlands). Other offices are located in the UK, Germany and Belgium. For more information, visit www.talkandvision.com.
 

ZiekenhuisMedia is a show case in the E-health Pavilion at WCIT 2010.

ZiekenhuisMedia, KPN’s patient entertainment and information, is leading the way in integrated bedside ICT. A dual-purpose solution – ZiekenhuisMedia enables secure bedside access to electronic patient data and clinical applications; whilst in turn, patients can access a range of digital entertainment, education and communications services.

The ZiekenhuisMedia terminal allows medical staff to securely call and retrieve the latest patient data from the Hospital Information System (HIS); including patient’s Electronic Medical Records (EMRs)and Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) images such as X-rays and CT scans; and interact with clinical applications such as computerised medication management and patient observation tools.

Outside of its clinical role, patients can easily access a wealth of digital entertainment from their bedside monitor using its simple touch-screen interface. Digital services include television, movies on-demand, Internet, email, games and telephony alongside hospital and medical information to keep patient’s informed.

ZiekenhuisMedia Benefits

ZiekenhuisMedia sits at the core of a clinician’s daily routine enabling effective and efficient care delivery. Medical staff can securely view and interact with a medical dashboard of data and tools empowering them to quickly update and interact with electronic patient profiles in contrast to traditionally cumbersome and time consuming paper-based records.
For patient’s, KPN’sZiekenhuisMedia reflects the needs of today’s sophisticated patients by delivering a state-of-the-art set of entertainment and communications services.

Benefits for Healthcare Operators
• Achieve rapid Return on Investment: Hospitals and operators can realise rapid ROI that offsets the initial outlay for ZiekenhuisMedia through revenue streams from patient entertainment charges and savings from more efficient hospital services such as online food ordering and bed management.
• Reduce clinical risk: Achieve superior care management and increase patient safety by providing the latest EMR data and care delivery tools at every patient bedside.
• Increase operational efficiencies: KPN’s ZiekenhuisMedia solution helps increase patient rounding effectiveness; automates
test ordering and results processing; and identifies staff
scheduling proficiencies.
• Flexible solution: Hospitals and healthcare operators can choose a unique combination of clinical tools, entertainment services and apply their own patient charges.

Benefits for Patients
• Increase morale: Patient’s well-being is enhanced and boredom eliminated with 24 hour access to multimedia entertainment and communications services.
• Stay informed: ZiekenhuisMedia keeps patients informed – providing internet access, hospital news and information data, medical videos/pamphlets and electronic meal ordering.
• Stay in touch: Nurse Call integration, operator services and VoIP telephony together with Internet and email access means patients can remain in constant contact with nurses as well as family, friends and colleagues.

ZiekenhuisMedia Components
Founded on a flexible component-based architecture, ZiekenhuisMedia is easily customised to meet a hospital’s specific ICT, clinical and patient entertainment needs. Hospitals’ can offer a full suite or phased delivery of clinical applications such as bedside retrieval and viewing of EMR and PACS data, observation tracking, computerised bed management, test ordering and meal management functionality. In addition, patient entertainment services can be delivered in a staged approach also.

A ZiekenhuisMedia solution is comprised of the following key components and features:
• Compact arm mounted flat-screen monitor at every bedside.
• Touch-screen interface and VoIP phone handset.
• Screen-cleaning application for improved infection management of every monitor.
• Customisable user-interface and application set-up.
• Remote network management enabling usage-monitoring and error resolution efficiencies for a complete patient network from a single back-office location.
• Reliable back-office set-up, ensures stable delivery of applications and data.
• Secure Single Sign ON (SSO) using smart card and/or RFID identification processes.

Read more about KPN.

In the ICT sector at the Base of the Pyramid, in year 2007, there were only two million fixed broadband subscribers in whole Africa where the population is about 1 billion. Especially, the penetration in Sub-Saharan regions is very low due to the lack of required telecommunication infrastructure, low gross domestic product per capita or the lack of reliable energy source. Nevertheless, the trend in the growth of Internet services is very promising especially when looking at the growth rate of other ICT services. When compared with the Internet usage, mobile telephony has found a substantial acceptance in those regions. There are currently more than 250 millions of subscribers in whole Africa and this number has increased exponentially over the years.

In the energy sector, 1.6 billion people do not have access to electricity. 3 billion people still use traditional biomass for cooking. Consequences on the affected populations at the base of the pyramid in terms of health, education, environment, well-being, or development are tremendous. For the stakeholders of the energy sector at the base of the pyramid (Private companies, NGOs, international organizations), this is a unique opportunity to tackle these challenges with market based solutions.

These 2 challenges represent an unique opportunity where ICT and Energy solutions could be combined to achieve bigger impact. It is also in line with the “Declaration of Amsterdam” which advocates in “Enhancing the global dimension” that the internet is a global phenomenon. It creates opportunities for all countries and every citizen of the world, however today these opportunities are unevenly distributed. Thus, the ICT industry is encouraged to develop and bring to the market ICT products and services that meet the needs of developing countries and are fit for use in their emerging ICT infrastructures, often based on mobile Technologies. Moreover, the governments should create, in close consultation with the private sector, the appropriate financial framework to foster investments in high speed ICT infrastructures in the developing countries.

Objective

The objective of the workshop is to provide an overview of the sector Energy/ICT/BoP and identify opportunities/challenges to approach this sector by the members of the audience.

Content

The workshop will run for 1h30 for a limited audience and will include the following elements:

• ICT4D keynote (Nicolas Chevrollier TNO): This presentation will introduce the topic of Base of the Pyramid and will provide a helicopter overview of the sector of ICT for development. It will present the challenge in this sector and some of the innovative solutions (e.g., mobile phoned based services) that have spurred in the past years. 
• Energy keynote (Frank van der Vleuten, ETC international). The presentation will provide an overview of the energy solutions at the base of the pyramid.

• An interactive session (Marijn Rijken TNO) with the audience to work on potential solutions to address the challenges of the Base of the Pyramid.

Sign in?

The workshop will be held on Day 2, May 26 from 16:00-17:30h in room G102. Only 25 delegates can join the workshop. Delegates can sign in for their participation by sending an email to nicolas.chevrollier[a]tno.nl

Setting the scene for new ways of measuring

Since 2001, the European Commission’s annual eGovernment benchmark has grown into Europe’s number one flagship ranking. It is a strong, widely accepted brand, and has unchallenged political impact at the top level of government as a policy accelerator. It focuses on today’s most pressing government service delivery issues. The continuous methodological updates of the benchmark respond to major policy concerns so it remains a top reference politically and professionally for the 2010 agenda and beyond.

The objective of eGovernment benchmarking is to measure the extent and ease at which government services are available online in Europe. The network of involved countries and European Commission officials transforms the exercise into a thought-leading program of cross-country research, knowledge exchange and networking.

In 2009, Capgemini has started revising the eGovernment benchmark process and framework with Member State governments and the European Commission. First, cautious steps were made in terms of measuring ‘what is great’ instead of ‘what is available and simply good’. Continuing our path, we are now in the process of a collaborative exercise with Member States to revise the present, 2010 eGovernment benchmark even more thoroughly. The process is collaborative: an important principle. For the 2010 revision we are involving Member States’ eGovernment representatives in several workshops to decide on the scope of measurement, the definition of the measures and the process by which the measurement will be made and reported.

EC eGovernment benchmarking at a glance
- Number one flagship benchmarking in Europe
- 31 countries
- More than 14.000 URLs
- Since 2001
- Front-office, back-office and user experience metrics
- Statistically robust
- Signed off by the European Commission

For more information, please contact Dinand Tinholt at or click here.