Information Technology Reference
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Governments are embracing such changes, which present significant structural
and cultural shifts. The State of Victoria in Australia, for example, has articulated
a Gov 2.0 Action Plan (further adopted as a basis for examining the Ontario case
study below) premised on the following principles: leadership, participation, trans-
parency, and performance. Aligned with the spirit of such principles, the spreading
of web 2.0 experimentation within government is specifically meant to foster col-
laboration and democratize the creation and exchange of ideas:
The role of citizens in an open government environment—enriched by
open government data—can be one of democratic innovators. In an
ongoing open innovation process, citizens can draw on open data, and
propose both policy-areas to tackle and technical approaches to take.
(Maier-Rabler & Huber, 2011, p. 186)
This new front-end of service delivery and more active forms of citizen engage-
ment is enjoined by evolving back-end cloud computing infrastructures reflecting
the dimensions of virtualization and mobility. As Young (2012) points out, the
cloud and mobility are intimately related through four trends similar to what is
described above:
First, electronic sensors got smaller and better. Second, people started car-
rying powerful computing devices, typically disguised as mobile phones.
Third, social media made it normal to share everything. And fourth, we
begin to get an inkling of the rise of a global super-intelligence known
as the cloud (p. 11).
In a likeminded, albeit more forward-looking and prospective examination of
mobility and government, Accenture (2013) offers four claims as to the potential of
mobility to drive value and benefit for government and society:
1. Mobile technology can bridge the digital divide.
2. Mobility can change relationships between citizens and government.
3. Mobility can help government become more insight-driven.
4. Mobility can increase workforce productivity—and satisfaction.
Within this wide spectrum of prospective beneficial impacts, our primary focus
in this chapter lies in exploring the evolution of the digital state within a 2.0 and
mobile context and whether opportunities for enhancing individual development
opportunities and in a corresponding manner, lessening the digital divide. The
notion of digital inclusion stems from all three of these dimensions and has been
increasingly recognized by some jurisdictions as a major component of digital gov-
ernance projects for the public sector and for society as a whole, with mobility as a
prominent feature in this regard.
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