IT-Forum is one of the biggest events devoted to information society and e-government development issues in the Ural Federal District, being held since 2008, and in 2013 it honorably continued the tradition of holding all-Russia international forums on information society.

The Forum was attended by more than 800 people from 7 countries and 30 subjects of the Russian Federation. There was a plenary session and 11 sections, more than 83 reports were made.

At the Forum the creation of conditions for development and implementation of best practices providing for improvement of quality of life of people on the basis of ICT use, and promotion of successfully operating programs and projects, were  discussed, exchange of experience between Russian and international experts in this sphere was held.

The first plenary session was opened by Natalia Komarova, Governor of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Region - Yugra.  She emphasized that information in contemporary world is the key to a complex stable improvement of quality of life of people, and that development of information technologies is one of priorities for the Government of the Region.  She also noted that Yugra is included in the top five of leading regions in terms of information society development.

Then Oleg Pak, Deputy Minister of Communication and Mass Media of the Russian Federation, announced the greeting from the Minister of Communication and Mass Media of the Russian Federation, Nikolay Nikiforov.  In the greeting there was expressed the gratitude to the Governor and the Government of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Region – Yugra for enabling the discussion of information society development in the Russian Federation.

Issues related to providing wide range access, development of e-government services, ICT use in the system of health care, education, culture, overcoming inequality between Russian regions in their access to ICT and its use, were counted as urgent problems.

Welcoming speeches were also delivered by Vladimir Manka, Chairman of the Bansko-Bystritskiy region of the Slovak Republic; Dmitry Strashnov, Director General of the FSUE “Russian Post”; Juan Navas-Sabater, Head of Sector of Sustainable Development of the World Bank in the Russian Federation.

The greeting on behalf of the UNESCO Bureau in Moscow and UNESCO Institute on Information Technologies in Education was announced by Svetlana Knyazeva.

The plenary session was chaired by Yury Hohlov, Chairman of the IIS Board of Directors, and academician of the Russian Engineering Academy.

In conclusion of the first plenary session a number of papers were signed: cooperation agreement between  the Government of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Region – Yugra and the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Russian Post”; Memorandum of mutual understanding between  the Government of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Region – Yugra and the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development; and cooperation agreement between the Government of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Region – Yugra and  "Control of  fiber optics on overhead power transmission lines of interregional grid distribution companies" OJSC.

On the first day of the Forum a ceremonial opening of exhibition “Technologies of electronic state” was held. The exhibition was visited by Natalia Komarova, Governor of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Region – Yugra, and Oleg Pak, Deputy Minister of Communication and Mass Media of the Russian Federation. The achievements of the region were presented by Andrey Borodin, Director of Department of information technologies of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Region – Yugra.

Further work of the Forum was held in a format of parallel thematic sections. IIS experts actively participated in the organization of sections, and also acted as chairmen and spokespersons at the sessions.

Within the framework of the section "Development of e-government services", which was held under chairmanship of Oleg Pak, Deputy Minister of Communication and Mass Media of the Russian Federation, the Head of IIS Directorate of Perspective Projects Alexander Evtyushkin reported on “Missing elements of infrastructure of e-government in the Russian Federation”.

Tatiana Ershova, IIS Director General, chaired the section “ICT use in the sphere of Culture”, moderated the section “ICT-infrastructure for social and economic development” and within the framework of the latter reported on “ICT-infrastructure for life: to what extent advantages of information society are available for Russian households”.

At the section "Overcoming inequality between Russian regions in access to ICTs and their use” Sergey Shaposhnik, Head of IIS Directorate of Directorate of Monitoring Information Society Development, presented the Index of Russian Regions E-readiness for 2011-2012, which is being published by IIS annually.  

The Forum ended with the second plenary session, during which Alexander Kim, First Deputy Governor of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Region – Yugra,  handed over diplomas and prizes to winners of the international student competition “IT Planet 2012/2013”: to Daniil Kazantsev for the 3^rd position at competition of innovative start-up developments in the sphere of information technologies and to 7^th grade pupil of Secondary School #1 Nikita Sychev  for victory in the competition in mathematics amongst 7 and 8 grades "5-3-1". The competition was organized by Yugra research institute of information technologies in on-line mode and was held at IT-Forum on June 4.

Then the results of work of sections were summarized. Results of work of sections "Development of e-government services” and «Overcoming inequality between Russian regions in access to ICTs" were summed up by Roman Urnyshev, Deputy Director of the Department of Coordination of Informatization of the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation.

Participants of sections came to a conclusion that it is necessary to apply a complex of measures, including development of a new concept of regional informatization, implementation of system of monitoring of regional informatization in order to determine best practices and renewal of the work of the Council on regional informatization and organization under this Council of expert groups.   In order to fulfill social obligations to citizens it is necessary not only to develop the infrastructure but also to implement programs of computer literacy increase.

The results of work of the section "Building up the system "Open Government" were summarized by Mikhail Bunchuk, Coordinator of regional programs of the World Bank in Russia. He noted that the main discussion during the section unfolded around open data of publication of data files in machine-readable format for secondary use by citizens and business.

More than 200 initiatives in the sphere of open data are being implemented in the world; this includes those implemented in Russia. Opening of data brings in significant economic effect from the point of view of business development on the basis of data opened by the government. In the course of the discussion a suggestion was made to develop recommendations on the project’s implementation at regional level.

The report on the work of the section "ICT use in Education" was made by Vladimir Tikhomirov, President of the Moscow State University of Economics, Statistics and Informatics. It was noted during the section the educational institutions of Yugra have very high level of informatization and have accumulated big experience, which requires generalization and distribution.

At the same time it was noted that the existing normative base is poorly oriented on ICT use in the educational process. Necessary subordinate acts for the law “On Education” do not exist.

Despite the fact that the law making process in the sphere of electronic education has activated, Russia falls behind from developed countries. Therefore it was proposed to prepare analytical report on the status of electronic education in Russia.   A specific topic of discussion is the development of on-line resources, situation with which requires thorough examination.

Section "ICTs in the sphere of health protection" was chaired by Georgiy Radzievskiy, Head of Division of Department of information technologies and communications of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation. Following the results of the section a number of problems were brought to light.

At present international standards are not being implemented in the sphere of health protection at a required level, and it retards the development of information systems and decreases their compatibility. Till present the fundamental problem has not been sold, which is related to uprisal of information systems, which make doctors do double work because control organizations refuse to accept reporting in e-format.   The issue related to wide range access of medical institutions to Internet in a number of subjects of the Russian Federation is not solved till now.  Participants of discussion proposed practical recommendations aiming to solve these problems.

The results of work of the section "E-Budget" were summarized by Elena Gromova, Head of Division of Department of information technologies of the Ministry of Finances of the Russian Federation. According to the opinion of participants of the section, main attention now needs to be paid to standardization and unification of processes in the sphere of economic activities and implementation of electronic work flow.

This will provide for increase in transparency of processes and awareness of people on the state expenditures. Participants spoke for organization of open discussion on development of state policy in public finance management. The results of work of the section «ICT use in the sphere of culture" were summarized by Tatiana Ershova, IIS Director General. The section was attended by employees of culture management authorities, as well as representatives of museums, libraries and commercial companies developing IT-applications in the sphere of culture.

Analysis of processes of mastering by cultural establishments of information technologies was made, and it was concluded that it’s time maximum digitalize collections of museums, libraries and archives, including use of cloud technologies. In this context particular importance goes to development of ICT-competencies of employees of cultural establishments, as well as users.

Section "Implementation of satellite navigation technologies with the use of GLONASS system and other results of space activities" was presented by Andrey Kupriyanov, Executive Director of Association “GLONASS/GNSS Forum”. The state policy in the sphere of navigation technologies use was discussed at the section.

Experience of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Region - Yugra was highly appraised, specifically experience in use of results of space activities for monitoring of specially protected natural territories and for reorganization of transport infrastructure. Andrey Kupriyanov handed over commemorative medals for contribution to the development of satellite system GLONASS.

The results of work of the section "E-Democracy" were summarized by professor of the Faculty of Law of MSU Elena Lukyanova, member of Public Chamber of RF.  She highly appraised the processes taking course in Yugra, and stated that this region, more than any other region of Russia, went a great way ahead in understanding of problems and methods of e-democracy system implementation.

Following the results of the work of the section a number of practical recommendations aimed at improvement of legislative base of e-democracy and distribution of new forms of public expertise and public control were developed.

Section "Geoinformation system in management" was presented by Sergey Miller, President of GIS Association. At the heart of the discussion was openness of data, including cancellation of copyrights for geographical maps production and providing direct access to databases of public authorities (by sample of Russian State Register).

Section "ICT-infrastructure for social and economic development" was chaired by Elena Boyko, Councilor of the Ministry of Communication and Mass Media of the Russian Federation.  She gave notice to very active work of participants of the section, which provided for examination of the problem from different points of view.  Following the results of discussion participants came to a conclusion that development of wide range access on the basis of private-state partnership is necessary.

Concept of creation of a unified telecommunication infrastructure for public authorities was discussed, and it was proposed to work through the legislative base for implementation of cloud technologies.  During the section recommendations for computer literacy increase for ordinary people and public servants were developed.

Viktor Zabolotskiy, Chairman of the Public Chamber of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Region – Yugra, member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, proposed to examine at the next Forum how the decisions of 2013 are implemented. Yury Hohlov, Chairman of the IIS Board of Directors, and academician of the Russian Engineering Academy highly praised the level of IT-Forum and expressed hope for a meeting next year. All leaders of sections thanked the Government of the Autonomous Region and the Department of information technologies for excellent organization of the IT-Forum and high quality of delivered reports.

Director of the Department of information technologies Andrey Borodin in his turn thanked the participants for active work.

Alexander Kim, First Deputy Governor of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Region – Yugra, in his final speech noted that in the last two years a huge work on e-government creation and transition to new forms of interaction between the authorities and the population was executed in the country.   He paid special attention to systems of support of managerial decisions, such as Territorial information system Yugra, which provide public authorities and citizens with reliable information. The program and materials of the Forum can be found on the official web-site. Decision of the IT-Forum have been placed in official information resources of the region for public discussion within 30 days.