הכנס למערכות מידע הים תיכוני החמישי באקדמית תל אביב יפו - נאום השר מיכאל איתן

MCIS 13-10-2010 – Minister Michael Eitan Speech

It is a great honor to address you – distinguished guests from abroad and from Israel –participating in the opening session of the 5th Mediterranean Conference of Information Systems.

The Mediterranean area is one of the cradles of our civilization. The ancient Egyptians, Jews, Greeks, Romans and other people created and developed here the basis for wisdom and ethics of Western civilization. Hopefully the exchange of information in this conference will produce new insights that will be disseminated to the global society as in the ancient era, but this time much further, much faster and to many more people.

As a politician, I am exploring how information systems can advance democracy. More specifically, how information systems can promote the interaction between governments and citizens.

Throughout history democracy was always influenced by technology. At the same time, democracy had an impact on technology. We can see the impact of technology through many information systems such as paper, print, radio, television and now the internet.

Your challenge, as IS researchers, is to study information systems that will enable citizens to enjoy what can be called "Open Government." Open Government will provide citizens with a greater degree of transparency, comprehensive accountability and participation.

Let me make clear, by participation I do not mean just voting once in few years in an election, but on a regular basis. Through information systems citizens can be full partners in designing services and processes that will enable the government to improve. The government will be able to feel the pulse and mood of citizens, and modify the government services accordingly to better meet citizens’ expectations.

Furthermore, another political challenge is to have helpful information systems address another challenge which is very important to the people of the Middle East, as well as to other people in other parts of the world. I am talking about establishing information systems that will enable dialogue and collaboration of people from opposing sides engaged in violent conflict.

Although currently social networks already cross boundaries of countries, people, faiths and religions, we still lack a social digital movement that gathers people from opposing entities and creates in both sides meaningful political power that could compel their leaders to stop violence and bloodshed and transform it into peace.

I assume that some of you will think at this stage of my speech that I forgot that I am speaking to researchers of information systems and not to my colleagues, the politicians. No, I didn’t. I truly believe that certain information systems and technologies can promote direct negotiations between people through technology. The Internet may produce convenient platforms that will be bases of dialogue between people and compel politicians to make the necessary compromises in order to bring peace. One of the most important tools in this context is the one that enables the exchange of online instantly translated multilingual information. Beyond all these advantages, if we had such a system today I guess that my broken English would have been much better understood… :)

Finally, I would like to mention that today is the fifth day of Tishrei; which is the first month of the Jewish year. According to our tradition, in these days we wish our relatives and friends a happy and sweet new year. So let me wish all of you, your relatives and friends a year of happiness, good health and achievements in all areas, and particularly in the area of research of information systems.