Infopolis project participants make anticipatory steps
The Day has recently dedicated much ink to the problem of implementing modern technologies in the economy, production, and society. We have written about a popular idea to create anticipatory structures in Ukraine, known as sociopolises. Originally, the idea to form new and competitive socioeconomic structures in Ukraine was put forward and specified by the Secretary of the National Defense and Security Council Yevhen Marchuk in his paper “Ukraine: New Paradigm of Progress” written in 1999. According to its author, “anticipatory development of Ukraine’s intellectual capital based on permanently growing overall human capital could provide a fast track for the country’s worthy headway toward the future.” To date, a powerful and increasingly active intellectual public movement has shaped up around the sociopolis idea.
The presentation of the Digital City: Information Technologies project by the volunteer Sociopolis association in Ukraine has become another fundamental step forward. The presentation was supported by the INTEL Corporation and PriceWaterhouseCoopers Consulting within the framework of the Technologies-Business-Society international business forum. The purpose of this project is to develop a uniform realistic strategy for developing Ukraine’s small and middle-sized cities. Its development will involve efforts and resources of various organizations, institutions, and companies, as well as individuals. According to the project initiators, mechanisms for the implementation of this strategy will be based on the rules of a free market economy and maximum utilization of the existing and potential advantages of Ukraine’s specific regions. The presentation was attended by city mayors, top executives of local governments, and representatives of information technology companies.
Some vital issues, often neglected by the analysts of market reforms, were raised in the course of the discussion that focused on the information platform for the sociopolis. Speakers emphasized the importance of motivation as a basis for change, conditions when new investments will help reach the desired future objectives, not canonize the past, along with the creation of stimuli for managers to discard obsolete techniques and switch to new ones. As stressed by the speakers, Ukraine cannot make a breakthrough in the socioeconomic area because of the conservative views still held by many Ukrainians and their belief that the large scale utilization of modern technologies is itself a guarantee of success. This kind of approach calls for the one-time use of huge reserves, something even economically thriving countries do not have, let alone Ukraine. This argument was emphasized by NDSC Chief of Staff Vasyl Shevchuk who read Yevhen Marchuk’s address to the participants of the conference. According to him, “Sociopolises make an ideal environment for using efficiency- generating mechanisms as they do not require considerable initial investment and produce an easily observable synergistic effect.”
Of keen interest to the participants was a paper delivered by National Bank of Ukraine Department of Information Director Anatoly Savchenko on the use of electronic technologies to develop national payment systems, notably, the so-called smart cards that serve as electronic wallets. A well-developed infrastructure making it possible to use non-cash payments in all spheres is the main feature of a digital city, Mr. Savchenko stressed. In his opinion, active use of money circulating in the banking system can accelerate cash flow and introduce a single system of utility and other kinds of payments. “Although the money deposited in personal bank accounts is transferred to the accounts of stores and organizations, it actually circulates within a single system and can be used by local governments to credit and finance social programs, Savchenko said. In this way, money generates new money. This is what gives a business edge to the digital city project, he added. The smart card can simultaneously serve as a bank card integrated with the international systems of payments, an electronic wallet, and a payment instrument for such goods and services as gasoline or public transportation. Ukrainian information technologists showcased their information/telecommunications infrastructure for a digital city and models of electronic business. Ukrainian Soft-Rating Research Center Director Valery Polishchuk, candidate of technical sciences, who has developed a project called Electronic Business for Small Companies, believes that information telecommunications technologies best meet the information needs of the people, raise the efficiency of traditional economy sectors, and present a new sector of the economy which, if properly developed, can enhance Ukraine’s competitiveness in the world distribution of labor.
If implemented, these projects will help form an absolutely new and much more effective infrastructure for direct investments in industry based on direct links between customers and producers and various kinds of resources, something that will eventually raise the efficiency of investment. According to Mr. Shevchuk, “Harmonized development of the project’s main aspects will make it possible to create viable communications networks, a prerequisite for the emergence of the information sphere, a single virtual environment covering all aspects of societal life given to real-time updating and reacting appropriately to any new changes.”
