Together towards the best Finnish information society in the world

The infrastructures are also developing as desired and the current figure of 700,000 broadband connections (April 2004) is not very far from the set target of a million connections by 2005. Moreover, the electronic services offered by the public administration and enterprises are in continuous development, and electronic contents are becoming more and more common.

The application of information and communications technologies and reform of the related processes require long-term commitment and incessant work if we wish to attain the objective of creating an information society for all. Functioning connections and provision of electronic services are not enough: we also need readiness and skills to use the services, and all this must be paralleled with confidence in their reliability

As a nation of some five million citizens, we, indeed, cannot afford to keep re-inventing the wheel again and again. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that the parties involved in this process can easily find information on existing best practices and that these practices are made known and accessible to all society In addition, we need strong nation-wide cooperation across traditional organisation boundaries. Increasingly harsh global competition only highlights the inevitability of cooperation.

In order to make the discovered best practices known and to encourage innovations and cooperation, the Tietoyhteiskunta.fi Internet pages will assemble information on the best Finnish information society practices. On 17 May 2004, an annual Best Practices Competition will be launched culminating in the Prime Minister’s Best Practices Award Gala in November.

It may well be that the high-quality services developed and branded in nation-wide cooperation, will prove Finland’s asset in the global export market. Therefore, it is my sincere wish that the Best Practices Competition attract a large number of candidacies. Apart from the award, I believe that participation will be encouraged by the ensuing positive publicity and genuine will to take part in the development of the Finnish information society.

Welcome to the Internet pages of the Government Information Society Programme. These pages provide information on the contents and implementation of the Government Information Society Programme, and on the work of the Information Society Council and its sections. In addition to Finnish, some of the information is also available in Swedish and English.

The Best Practices Competition also includes a separate Quality Competition for public web services. Further information is available at www.laatuaverkkoon.fi (in Finnish and in English).

I invite you to participate in the work towards the world’s best Finnish information society!

Matti Vanhanen
Prime Minister