e-Development Thematic Group/Global ICT Department, IT SLC Quickstart, GDLN, Development Gateway Foundation, ECCB, and IIS Russia present a Global Dialogue workshop on Next Generation Organizational Models for e-Government: Emerging Role of Centers of Excellence.

The workshop will take place on April 1, 2008, at 9:30 am - 12:30 pm ET, Washington DC.

This workshop will discuss the role of a new generation of e-government organizations which could extend the role of e-Government "Centers of Excellence" or "Competency Centers" in keeping with emerging technology and organizational trends. These organizations could potentially help expand and scale-up successful e-Government approaches, including those using Service Oriented Architecture and Web 2.0 technologies. These "e-Gov 2.0" organizations could be designed as hybrids with flexible structures, drawing expertise from government agencies, academia, private sector and industry. The session intends to explore promising approaches to the design of such organisations drawing upon successful experiences from the private and public sectors. The session will discuss the applicability of such next generation e-government organizations to different environments. In environments where e-Government projects are risky and, involve high level technical skills, and domain expertise, such approaches could effectively meld the business of government with new technologies and business models to achieve future oriented and high impact eGovernment applications.

This workshop is targeted to government clients in OECS countries who will be joining via videoconference but will be open to audiences in Russia, Africa, and Washington DC and a global audience via live webcast. 

The proposed session will attempt to answer the following questions:

• What changes in technologies and business models are likely to impact organizational structures supporting e-government?
• What will be the impact of Web 2.0 technologies?
• What will be the chief characteristics of successful organizational models for advancing e-government in the future?
• What are examples of good practice in organizational design (drawn from both the public and private sectors), for addressing the needs and requirements for successful e-government?
• How should governments go about establishing such new generation organizational structures for supporting e-government?
• What could be the business model for such a center to ensure sustainability? What could be the role of private sector in such centers?
• What skills and competencies should such organizations possess?  Which services/functions should such centers provide?
• Are there any innovative approaches to organizational design, catering to e-government deployments in a regional context?

Additional information on this seminar, such as the agenda, speaker profiles and slides will be placed online as they become available at http://www.worldbank.org/edevelopment. The event will be webcast live for Country Offices and remote audiences to enable remote participation, and several country offices will also be connected via videoconference.

The Live Webcast / e-Discussion and archived videoclip will be available at: http://www.worldbank.org/edevelopment/live.

The Russian part of the workshop will take place on April 1, 2008, at 15:00 pm - 21:30 pm Moscow time, in World Bank Moscow Office (B. Molchanovka, 36-1, room 109).

More information at http://go.worldbank.org/2LA3GGGEA0.