IFIP WG 8.5 (ICT & Public Administration) joined with the Digital Government Society (DGS) this month to stage a virtual annual IFIP EGOV-CeDEM-ePart2020 conference.

Conducted from 31 August to 2nd September, the event represented a merger between IFIP WG 8.5 Electronic Government (EGOV), IFIP WG 8.5 IFIP Electronic Participation (ePart) and the Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government Conference (CeDEM).

Originally planned to take place at Linköping University in Sweden, IFIP EGOV2020 was held as a fully digital conference and attracted around 70 participants, making it a great success. Each author recorded a short presentation of their paper beforehand so that the conference focused on providing feedback, discussing research and learning from each other.

The conference explored topics relating to e-Government, Open Government, eParticipation and e-Democracy as well as complementary issues including the role of social media, digital transformation in society, Artificial Intelligence, legal informatics, policy information, smart governance and social innovation.

IFIP EGOV2020 attracted different types of submissions, including completed research, ongoing research, practitioner papers, reflections & viewpoints, posters and workshops. In addition, the conference organized a PhD colloquium. The conference featured keynotes speeches about digital transformation in public administration and making a societal impact, and workshops about open data, smart cities and artificial intelligence in public administration.

The virtual version of the conference worked very well and stirred a lot of discussion and engagement amongst scholars. The recorded presentations can be viewed at: http://videolectures.net/EGOV2020/

 

Images: Screenshots of digital transformation keynote