INFORMATION SOCIETY
The 6 digital projects delivered by ‘Information Society’ by the end of 2023
Fully consistent with its commitment to ensure the timely and qualitative implementation of the important digital projects it has designed and developed in recent years, ‘Information Society’ has already, before the turn of the year, completed six of those projects, relating to key sectors of Greek society and economy.
All those projects are funded by the Operational Program ‘Public Sector Reform’, within the context of the NSRF 2014-2020, by the ESF and ERDF, as well as with national resources.
‘Digital Information Centre’
The ‘Digital Information Centre’ will fully meet the needs of the Secretariat-General for Communication and Information, thus becoming an important state-of-the-art tool for providing accurate and reliable information to Greek citizens and all government structures. It will also create a very important historical and open information database intended to preserve and utilise modern and contemporary history archives, with emphasis on media archives.
‘National Codification Portal’
The ‘National Codification Portal’ will be the electronic hub of codified legislation, organised according to up-to-date standards and available to the public. It will also be the platform for standardising the entire legislative and regulatory flow, facilitating codification and supporting the functioning of better legislation structures, as described in the framework of the ‘National Strategy for the Codification and Reform of Greek Legislation 2018-2020’.
‘Army Pension Fund’
Thanks to the development of Digital Services, the digitisation of the hardcopy archive, and the unified Interoperability Services, the ‘Army Pension Fund’ now has its own integrated information system and web portal in cooperation with the Special Branch for Financial Aid to Army Pensioners (EKOEMS), the Special Army Mutual Assistance Account (ELOAS) and the Mutual Assistance Fund for Army Pension Fund Employees (TAYMTS).
‘Digital Transformation of Consular Services processes’
The ‘Digital Transformation of Consular Services Processes’ has improved the services provided to Greek citizens abroad by the 125 Greek Consulates in 85 countries around the world. The project includes a Digital Service for the management of requests filed by citizens, as well as a Virtual Assistant, which has already been integrated into the websites of all Greek consular authorities and provides written answers to questions asked by citizens in Greek, English and 17 other languages, using AI.
‘Electronic services of the National Printing House’
Finally, thanks to the ‘Electronic Services of the National Printing House’, the procedures for receiving, processing and publishing the Hellenic Government Gazette issues have been redesigned, simplified and standardised by the development of a new state-of-the-art information system. Thus, a new environment is set up for providing services to citizens and organisations, marked with customised features, security and user-friendliness, as well as a sophisticated and faster Hellenic Government Gazette search functionality for the general public, to fully cover the information needs of interested parties.
‘Actions to Strengthen the Digital Services of the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (Black Money)’
The ‘Actions to Strengthen the Digital Services of the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (Black Money)’, by updating and strengthening the existing applications of its three units, will ensure, among other things, the strengthening of the supervisory control of information and of the flow between subsystems, the improvement of the operational transparency and data cross-checking of internal procedures, as well as the strengthening of internal procedure control and of data exchange between the units.
€30 million support for ‘Youth Pass’ and ‘Dentist Pass’ from ‘Information Society’
‘Information Society’ also plays a pivotal role in the implementation of digital actions to empower citizens and businesses.
Based on a legacy of know-how and experience in the implementation of demanding social programmes amidst international health, economic and social crises (Freedom Pass, Freedom Pass Data, Digital Care, Fuel Pass, Power Pass, Market Pass, etc.), which it managed to carry out over the past two years, ‘Information Society’ was also able to successfully complete the ‘Youth Pass’ and ‘Dentist Pass’ actions.
More specifically, the submission of applications for the ‘Youth Pass’ programme was successfully completed on 12 December 2023. More than 139 thousand (139,728) beneficiaries will receive a total of more than €20 million (€20,959,200.00).
This is an action designed by the Ministry of the Economy and Finance, the Ministry of Digital Governance and the Ministry of the Interior and implemented by ‘Information Society’.
The project is funded by the State budget.
It aims to provide financial support of €150 to young people aged 18 and 19 years old. Youth Pass takes the form of a digital debit card provided to beneficiaries in order to use it to purchase goods or services from undertakings operating in sectors related to tourism (e.g. tourist accommodation), culture (e.g. attending theatre performances or concerts, buying books, etc.) and transport (taxis, buses, trains, ferry/air tickets or car/yacht rentals, etc.).
As far as the ‘Dentist Pass’ action is concerned, with the deadline for submitting applications having expired on 22 December, which attracted a great deal of attention from children’s parents, more than 242,000 children aged 6 to 12 years old have benefited from a digital debit card of €40 for preventive dental care services.
This is an action with a total budget of €9,800,000, undertaken by the Ministry of the Economy and Finance, the Ministry of Digital Governance and the Ministry of the Interior and implemented by ‘Information Society’ in the context of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan ‘Greece 2.0’ with funding from the EU NextGenerationEU programme.
Stavros Asthenidis
CEO
Information Society
Mr. Stavros Asthenidis at the Growthfund Summit: ‘Implementing the projects by the end of 2025’
Mr Stavros Asthenidis, CEO of ‘Information Society’, referred, among other things, to the company’s major challenge consisting in the qualitative and effective completion of significant digital projects planned and announced by it in key sectors of Greek society at the recent Growthfund Summit organised by the National Fund of Greece with the theme ‘Digitising Greece for the following day’.
More specifically, initially Mr Mr Asthenidis pointed out that the biggest challenge for the company is ‘to implement the projects that we have planned for contracting and implementation. From now on the aim is for us to stay consistent in the following phase too, which is to implement the projects by the end of 2025. This is the direction in which all our efforts are now directed.’
Watch the entire discussion between Mr Asthenidis and panel moderator, journalist Mr Mallas at
‘Information Society’ as a Digital Hub for Sustainable Development
The strategic goal of ‘Information Society’ for Digitally Sustainable Development was stressed by Communication Manager Mrs Eleni Dede in the special feature of ‘Diktio’ with the theme: ‘ESG & AI – The role of Businesses in Sustainable Development.’
More specifically, she referred to the ‘blending’ of the institutional role of ‘Information Society’ in the specialisation of Greece’s digital strategy, which leads to fundamental changes in the way organisations operate and the creation of added value by adopting the ‘Digital with Purpose’ culture, thus leading to the attainment of sustainable development goals.
In this context, ‘Information Society’, as the hub for digitally sustainable development, incorporates in its operational planning specific objectives and actions such as:
- Corporate Responsibility of ‘Information Society’ for the organisation itself, as well as for public structures, companies and the society.
- Strengthening and development of partnerships with public and private bodies, to ensure further progress in terms of sustainable development actions.
- Development of a monitoring system for sustainable development actions.
- Implementation of sustainable development actions in cooperation with third parties, with the common goal of ensuring the sustainable development of public organisations, citizens and companies.
Read Mrs Dede’s entire article in the special feature of ‘DIKTIO’ at https://todiktio.eu/afieroma-tou-diktyou-gia-esg-kai-ai-akronymia-kleidia-gia-to-paron-kai-to-mellon-mas/
Mr D. Giantsis: The projects to be put to tender by ‘Information Society’ in the first half of 2024
The direction of the national digital transformation plan for the following day, which is in full swing, was explained by the Director-General for Projects of ‘Information Society’, Mr Dimitris Giantsis.
‘In the last five years, under the Ministry’s guidance and with the cooperation of all stakeholders, we have managed to put Greece on the track of digital transformation. This consists in pivotal projects and interventions.
Our contribution to the development of Gov.gr has been instrumental. We have also launched more than 250 tenders since 2019 and we are now handling more than 350 projects (€3 billion), which are at various stages of maturity, most of them being funded by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan ‘Greece 2.0’.
We are taking robust action to make sure that digital transformation covers ‘everything’, the entire spectrum of public administration. We want citizens and businesses to enjoy better quality, safer and faster public services and a better quality of life.
Our objective is twofold. On the one hand to implement the already-advanced major digital projects that are cutting across various aspects of the social and economic fabric, and on the other hand to launch new targeted digital actions.
Most certainly, the first axis includes Justice and Health. It comprises the flagship and complex e-Justice project, which will allow for speeding up the administration of justice, as well as the Telemedicine project, which is expected to allow for providing basic health services in all inaccessible areas of Greece.
We are intensively pursuing the reform of the budgetary system of the central administration and other General Government (Gov ERP), the single digital infrastructure for services to citizens and businesses (CRM), as well as a number of smaller projects for the technological modernisation of public institutions. The implementation of projects to enhance and expand existing cloud infrastructures, as well as to procure Public Cloud services for the Hellenic State for the first time is also very important.
As part of the second axis of action, calls were issued recently or are to be issued soon by ‘Information Society’ for projects such as:
- Actions to strengthen public sector security
- Vehicle and container tracking system
- Diavgeia III
- Integrated Information System for the Supreme Council for Civil Personnel Selection (ASEP) and a new public sector recruitment environment
- Electronic Register of Tourism Enterprises (e-MITE)
- Development of the capital market
- Inventory, digitisation and development of public real estate in the welfare sector
- Personal assistants for people with disabilities
- Programme for upgrading the digital skills of persons joining the Hellenic Armed Forces
- Development of a Private Debt Monitoring Register (PDMR)
- Wireless communication system for the Fire Service and the National Crisis and Risk Management Mechanism
- Digital transformation of citizenship procedures
- Prepaid cards for social benefits
- Ministry of National Defence radars – Hellenic National Meteorological Service stations , to ensure early warning of natural disasters
- Upgrade of the cash register and POS system