Digital Single Market will provide users with significant access to digital goods and services and convenience in their daily routine, and at the same time it provides the enterprises with an access to new customers, said Peter Ivanov, Chair of the Bulgarian Association of Information Technologies (BAIT) at a roundtable themed “Digital Single Market Through e-government and Digital Entrepreneurship”.
“I hope the government will reaffirm their determination to enter the digital market, launching the expected e-governance. Open data are among the important issues, so that every company could benefit from them and enhance their competitiveness,” added Ivanov.
Boyko Borissov, Prime Minister of Bulgaria and Andrus Ansip, Vice President of the European Commission and Commissioner for the Digital Single Market were special guests at the round table organized by MEP Eva Paunova and BAIT. PM Borissov declared that the priority of the government is accelerating the e-government construction and that longs for the introduction of e-voting for Bulgarians abroad. For its part Andrus Ansip said that there is no reason why a public service may not be available online so that it will be used more quickly and more effectively. In his opinion e-government would not only significantly reduce costs for citizens and businesses, but also will brign back society’s confidence in the administration. He shared the example of his native Estonia, where according to a special law the state may only once request personal data of citizens, and is obliged to store the info for future use.
Eva Paunova, Bulgarian MEP said that involvement of such high-level politicians at the conference is an evidence of the Bulgarian Government’s commitment that e-government in Bulgaria should be launched in the shortest possible time. Tomislav Donchev, Deputy Prime Minister said that undoubtedly the fastest highways are digital and the digital agenda cannot be accepted as a contemporary whim and Ivaylo Moskovski, minister of Transport, Information Technologies and Communications, announced that next week will start the public discussion of the Law for Electronic Identification.
The second panel of the round table was dedicated to digital entrepreneurship and the creation of e-mentoring ecosystem. Representatives of BAIT, Bulgarian Presidency, Sofia Tech Park, Software University and successful Bulgarian startups took part in the discussion. They united around the idea that it is important that various stakeholders should work together on the entrepreneurship theme and communicate good practices in that area. The round table was organized within the Watify project, which is coordinated in Bulgaria by BAIT.
