New developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) have enabled public organizations to innovate in their internal processes and in the services they offer. In this context, these developments have led to the emergence of e-government and smart city concepts that will modify, and ultimately improve, the way public organizations operate.

In recent years, the evolution of information and communication technologies (ICT) has enabled many organizations to deliver information and services in new and innovative ways. As far as governments are concerned, these new developments have led to the emergence of the concept of "e-government", which refers to the use of ICT by government entities, in order to deliver their information and services in a more optimal way to their users (citizens, businesses and other government organizations).

In this context, "smart cities" and "smart territories" emerge as a broader paradigm that refers to the design of innovative solutions to address issues of public interest by including all key city and territory stakeholders (government, private sector, NGOs, citizens). These innovative solutions are often grouped into several domains focused on a specific issue: smart mobility, smart governance, smart living, smart population, smart economy and smart environment. In these situations, the use of AI by public services raises new areas of research such as B2G data sharing, public procurement and liability issues. Recently, a research contract was signed between NADI and AdN (Agence du Numérique, Walloon Region) to analyze the ethical and regulatory framework for the development of AI within Walloon administrations.

NADI promotes scientific research in these areas from different angles: administrative simplification, security requirements, open data, development of online services, citizen participation, stakeholder ecosystem, human-machine interaction, etc. More than 30 internationally renowned experts from several NADI research centers are currently joining forces and conducting cross-disciplinary research in these areas. Current research projects include Wal e-Cities, DIGI4FED, citizen participation through open data, AI and public services and TRAKK capacity building.

Open Data Guide

As part of its role as Smart Region academic referent, in collaboration with the SPW and the Agence du Numérique, funded by the Walloon Recovery Plan, the Institut Numérique de Namur is carrying out several actions to help public bodies publish and exploit open data.

Logo Plan Relance Wallonie

The aim is to provide legal support, organize the annual Vivre la Ville conference, supervise projects using open data as part of the Data Analytics course, and finally to draft a guide proposing a roadmap for the publication and use of open data for public bodies.

This guide details the open data publication process in all its stages and explains how open data can be reused to develop innovative services or set up citizen participation projects. The guide is illustrated with examples and recommendations based on scientific literature.

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Publications

  • A. Clarinval, B. Dumas and B. Duhoux (2019). Supporting citizen participation with adaptive public displays: a process model proposal. In Proceedings of the 31st Conference on l'Interaction Homme-Machine: Adjunct (pp. 1-11)
  • E. Degrave and C. De Terwangne (2016). Regulation e-IDAS and the public sector: The Belgian electronic identity card, instrument of a European digital identity?. In L'identification électronique et les services de confiance depuis le règlement eIDAS (pp. 361-380). Larcier.
  • E. Gebka and A. Castiaux (2019). Data-driven initiatives in Smart cities: citizen participation and value creation. In ISPIM Conference Proceedings (pp. 1-9). The International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM).
  • L. Gérard (2017). Reuse of public sector data: la transposition de la directive 2013/37/UE par la loi du 4 mai 2016, Auteurs et Media, 2017, n°4, pp. 322-333.
  • L. Gérard (2017). Robotisation des services publics: l'intelligence artificielle peut-elle s'immiscerer sans heurt dans nos administrations. In Intelligence artificielle et le droit (dir. A. De Streel and H. Jacquemin), Bruxelles, Larcier, 2017, pp. 413-436.
  • M. Knockaert (2018). La réutilisation des informations du secteur public: l'open data et les organismes publics, J.T., 2018, n°6739, pp. 613-621.
  • A. Lachapelle (2020). Tax whistleblowing in the age of whistleblowers: from complacency to vigilance.
  • A. Simonofski, E.S. Asensio, J. De Smedt, and M. Snoeck (2018). Hearing the Voice of Citizens in Smart City Design: The CitiVoice Framework. Business \& Information Systems Engineering, 1-14
  • A. Simonofski, H. Ayed, B. Vanderose, and M. Snoeck (2018). From Traditional to Agile E-Government Service Development: Starting from Practitioners' Challenges. In Americas Conference on Information Systems, Boston. Association for Information Systems (AIS).

Projects

  • AI and Public services - Towards an adequate legal framework: Study sponsored by AdN (2020 - 2021)
  • DIGI4FED: Use of AI and Big Data by Governments to fight tax and social fraud (2020-2022)
  • FLEXPUB: A new generation of flexible public services -- the case of geographic information (2016-2020)
  • Towards an effective citizen participation through open data (UNamur CERUNA PhD Grant) (2019-....)
  • TRAKK: Capacity Building of actors in creativity and innovation (2014-...)
  • Wal-e-cities: LIV, MOB and GOV projects (2016-2020)

Contact

Anthony Simonofski