On 10-11 November Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Sweden (Stockholm) held seminar "City of the Future" within the framework of activity carried out by the Sub-Committee on Information Society and Regional Cooperation of the Swedish-Russian Working Group on Information Technologies and Communications of the Swedish-Russian Intergovernmental Council.

Russian delegation representing government, business and civil society participated in the seminar. The first day of the seminar was dedicated to general issues concerning strategies and programs of the Information Society development on national and regional levels, implementation of separate projects on large-scale use of ICT, especially in e-Government projects.

On the first day the seminar was opened by Ingve Redling, co-chairman of the WG (Swedish-Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry) and Yuri Hohlov, Russian co-chairman of the Sub-Committee on Information Society and Regional Cooperation (Institute of the Information Society). The seminar participants were greeted by Karin Anderman, representative of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, and Jesper Hedlund, Swedish co-chairman of the Sub-Committee on Information Society and Regional Cooperation (Ericsson).

The participants were presented the following reports:

• Maria Holl (Ministry of Industry, Employment and communications of Sweden) - ICT policy of the Government of Sweden
• Marcus Sheld (Municipality of Nakka Stockholm) - Experience of the Municipality of Nakka
• Ilva Hambraes-Bjerling (IT Association of Sweden) - National coordination in the sphere of ICT
• Lars Frosslund (Tieto Enator) - At the front edge - 2005
• Mikhail Luchinkin (Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications of the RF) - Russian strategy for ICT sector development
• Yuri Hohlov (Institute of the Information Society) - e-Russia and e-Moscow Programs
• Rolf Kvernstrom (Tieto Enator) - e-Services: Stockholm experience
• Andrey Reshetov (NCC) - Possibilities of cooperation between National Computer Corporation and Systematics company

On the second day the seminar was held in the headquarters of Ericsson company located in the major Swedish technopark "Chista". The participants discussed possibilities of joint implementation in a Russian region of a pilot project "City of the Future" aimed at fast deployment of infrastructure for ICT access on the basis of wireless WiMax technologies and implementation of some e-Government services aimed at strengthening cooperation between regional governmental authorities with citizens and/or organizations.

Next meeting of the Sub-Committee on Information Society and Regional Cooperation is planned in Russia for mid-December 2005