On November 18th the First international scientific conference called Electronic governance and open society: challenges in Eurasia (EGOSE-2014) began its work at the ITMO University. The event was organized by eGovernment Center of the ITMO University and Partnership of the information society development in Northwest Russia.

The conference is of particular relevance due to the problems associated with the development of information society technologies and electronic control, not only in Russia but throughout the world.Business program of the conference is full of plenary sessions, scientific sessions and discussion roundtables. Invited speakers, among which there are experts and specialists in the field of e-government will discuss prospects of the "open government", the issues of the development of "electronic democracy" and functioning of systems of the open data, development trends of "smart cities", developments in the field of e-government, and more. One of the examples of such developments is the "Public services" website, where the citizens of Russia can enroll their child in kindergarten, get acquainted with the legislative acts, check their tax arrears, or, for example, make a foreign passport. Now they do not need to sit in long queues and make an appointment to the officials.

"The main indicator by which we measure the success of our business is the proportion of citizens who use e-services",  Vladimir Auerbach comments, the director of the department of e-government development of the Ministry of communications and mass media of Russian Federation."The corresponding calculation is made by Russian Federal State Statistics Service each year. This year our key performance indicator was set at the level of 35%. And by 2018, we plan to raise it to 70%. Today, all our efforts are directed on asking people to use electronic services, explaining them how it's convenient and profitable".

The conference was opened by Dmitry Trutnev, the deputy director of the eGovernment Center of the ITMO University. He wished all participants a fruitful and successful work. He also noted that such an event, dedicated to the problems of the development of the electronic control and information society is held in Russia for the first time.

"Despite the fact that in the world these forums became regular long ago, in Russia, we are still pioneers",Dmitry Trutnev says."We hope that EGOSE will attract the attention not only of researchers but also of representatives of public authorities, who are implementing the related technologies".

According to Dmitry Trutnev, although the development of e-government in Russia have been discussing for 14 years, the successes so far achieved are not significant, despite of large investments.Therefore it is very important that there are some foreign colleagues at the conference who can share their experiences.

"I believe EGOSE-2014 is a very important event, and I'm glad to be here",professor Maria Wimmer says, University Koblenz-Landau (Germany)."It is very important to establish a dialogue between specialists from different countries, we can learn a lot from each other. Today we have heard and probably will hear a lot of useful reports on the topic we are interested in".

The initiator of the conference is the eGovernment Center that was established at the ITMO University in 2009.At its base is opened Russia's first department, where qualified specialists in this field are preparing.

"The ITMO University can be called a pioneer in this area, which is important not only for St. Petersburg, but also for the whole country", Catherine Tulugurova, the head of the department of the international educational programs at the ITMO University, comments.

But first of all, in her opinion, the EGOSE conference will provide an opportunity for a fresh look at the problems of development of the information society and electronic services, help to establish contacts, find partners as well as implement joint projects with foreign colleagues.

The comprehensive summary of the information discussed at the conference may also be found on the conference website http://egov-conf.ifmo.ru/summing.html