"Brussels has IT": an ambitious ICT development programme in Brussels

State of emergency?

Given the fierce worldwide competition, there is no doubt: it is time to react. Public or private, there has been too much dawdling, thinking, weighing up...

Research laboratories, industrialists, public institutions have to be contacted to break down the barriers and the clans and to breathe in new life so that Brussels is in a position to win the economic war, the information war. The weapons are technological, and at the heart of technology is innovation.

Brussels has everything it takes to successfully take up this challenge.

We have real technological and industrial assets to develop breakaway technologies.

Programmes have already been identified:

• the deployment of WIFI/WIMAX in the region
• the development of voice technology on the Internet, which will enable free telephone services
• the development of new-generation imaging equipment in the healthcare sector
• the finalisation and organisation of an integrated telemedicine portal
• the creation of economic intelligence platforms integrating networks of experts and knowledge

Public, Private and Scientific Partnerships will need to take charge of these programmes. The projects will therefore have to be undertaken with industrialists and research centres to gather intelligence, networks, software programs and capital and in this way deploy the applications resulting from research as soon as possible in order to make them operational rapidly and economically.

Brussels does not have a clear image among foreign investors as regards its capacity to integrate the new information technologies. An effort needs to be made to improve the visibility of ICT in the Brussels Region and make the most of the efforts that are being made.

The new technologies revolution that began at the end of the last century is becoming a far-reaching movement, bringing major changes in all areas of our society. No-one now disputes this state of affairs. The biggest beneficiaries of the changes that are coming about, will be those who embrace them first.

It is possible to increase efficiency and streamline the way our social and economic organisation functions by investing in the information society.  Increasing the well-being of ordinary people, meeting their practical needs fairly and justly thanks to the information society - these are necessities.

The idea of devising a global policy must take root in Brussels so as to create interaction between IT equipment, telecommunication, training and even research programmes.

The new information technologies have to be placed at the service of regional policy on a cross-disciplinary basis, that is they have to promote the development of our Region fairly.

To reinforce this great movement of the information society by an ambitious, initiative-driven policy and to make the most of the exceptional position of Brussels, the capital of Belgium and of Europe, the proposal is to assign the BRIC four strategic objectives to enable Brussels to make its mark:

1. to use ICT as a factor for economic development, research/development and improvement of the efficiency of public services.

2. to speed up the deployment of e-government in public services for the benefit of citizens and companies, to create the conditions to ensure widespread, affordable Internet access for all citizens and SMEs and to promote ICT as a factor of social integration.

3. to develop IT at the service of the education sector.

4. to promote an ambitious programme for the development of ICT in the Region as a world reference in this field.