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ARC Fund’s positioning as the premier information society public policy think-tank was re-confirmed through the substantive references to e-Bulgaria 2006 analysis and recommendations in the recently adopted National Program for Accelerated Development of Information Society (2008-2010) by the Council of Ministers in October 2008. Despite the significant delay of more than two years after the endorsement of the report by the Coordination Council on Information Society with the Council of Ministers (July 2006) and less than a year before the end of the current government’s term, the Program outlines important priorities which are missing in the current policy actions and funding decisions of all major government stakehodlers.
ARC Fund provided on ad-hoc basis input to the Ministry of State Administration and Administrative Reform on e-governance secondary legislation, to the Public Council on Intellectual Property Rights Protection with the Ministry of Culture, and to the Public Council on European Affairs with the Parliamentary Committee on European Affairs on Bulgaria's position on the new Safer Internet Program and related legislative and institutional changes.
In 2008 ARC Fund continued its policy reseach and advocacy in the field of e-government (which started already in 2000 by an assessment of indicative services, followed by a pilot foresight in e-government 2001 – 2004 and web-sites assessment in 2004 and 2005) by benchmarking of web-services provided by municipalities in nine countries in Sutheast Europe and compilation of a book (to be published in 2009) with contributions from policy makers, academics, private business and civil society organizations. Roughly half of all web-sites in the region have been assessed following the KEeLAN methodology. Special emphasis in conducting the policy workshops on e-government in 2008 was put on innovation through free/libre and open source software as well as overall digital infrastructure needed for integrated service delivery by municipalities.
ARC Fund, as registered non-governmental and not-for-profit research organization with the Ministry of Education and Science received exploratory grant to compare Bulgarian and Vietnamese ICT markets and find niches for potential research and commercial cooperation between ICT organizations from the two countries . ARC Fund participated in the Vietnam telecom expo in November 2008 in Ho Shi Min and held several meetings with IT companies, business associations and business incubators in Ha Noi.
2. Support to SMEs in ICT sector
Through EEN– Bulgaria ARC Fund implemented a number of activities in the ICT field aimed at promoting and introducing innovative technologies to the European market. The good cooperation of EEN-Bulgaria with local and international organisations consolidated and strengthened the services and assistance provided to the Bulgarian ICT companies. Three companies from the sector were assisted in signing technology transfer agreements.
Aiming at finding international cooperation partners and new solu tions in ICT - an opportunity provided by the 10th edition of the international partnering event Future Match at CeBIT 2008 in Hanover, Germany, ARC Fund organised the participation of Bulgarian companies and promotion of their innovative achievements. The event’s statistics proved its success - over 480 participants from 39 countries took part in over 1200 prearranged face-to-face meetings, established contacts and discussed technology co-operation, joint development, research projects, manufacturing, marketing and licensing agreements.
In March 2008 ARC Fund, in cooperation with the Italian IRC IRIDE, the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridsky”’s Centre of Information Society Technologies , and the Italian company PoloICT, organised in Sofia an ICT Technology Transfer Event focused on “ Telework: technologies and methodologies”. This was a new sub-sector in which EEN–Bulgaria had no experience before, but the results of the event showed that Bulgarian companies had strong interest in this emerging field and two cooperation agreements were signed between Bulgarian and Italian companies.
The 22 nd ICT exhibition ‘INFOSYSTEM’ in Thessaloniki, Greece was another event where 11 Bulgarian companies exchanged ideas and discussed business cooperation opportunities. ARC Fund (EEN–Bulgaria), in collaboration with the Help-Forward of Greece, organised the brokerage event within the premises of the HELEXPO centre of Thessaloniki. The match-making focused on opening new markets and establishing sustainable partner relationships.
The final ICT event for the year was a company mission in December 2008 to Patras, Greece. It was for companies interested in cooperation for export, import, distribution and technology transfer. The event hosted 35 Greek companies and research and technology organizations, as well as 45 business representatives from Egypt, Bulgaria, France, Germany, India, Spain, Israel, Italy, Cyprus, Malta, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and Turkey. 340 pre-arranged business meetings were held during the event.
ARC Fund joined the Safer Internet Programme of the European Commission in 2005 with the launch of its first project to set up a national hotline for fighting illegal and harmful for children content in Internet. The variety of activities conducted by ARC Fund over the past couple of years quite naturally resulted in expanding the scope and outreach of ARC Fund’s Safer Internet portfolio in 2008. In June 2008 a new two-year continuation project under the EU’s Safer Internet plus Programme was launched in partnership with the Association Roditeli (Parents), the Federation for Electronic Sport and the advertising agency, DeConi. This second safer Internet project builds a new layer to the existing hotline by adding a Safer Internet awareness node, the purpose of which will be mainly to raise public awareness about Safer internet issues in the country. Currently ARC Fund is member of the International Association of Internet Hotline Operators (INHOPE) and of the Safer Internet awareness nodes network, InSafe.
Over the years, ARC Fund has succeeded in establishing a wide network of organizations, institutions and individual experts and through their joint efforts to substantially raise awareness in the country about the need for education, regulation and self-regulation, and development of technical tools to minimize online risks for children. The Public Council on Safer Internet use, set up and co-ordinated by ARC Fund, has gained legitimacy among the broad public as a coalition for preventing risks and abuse of children in, or through Internet. New organisations and companies were associated to this coalition in 2008, raising the number of Public Council members to 22. Two 6-month national awareness raising campaigns were organised in partnership with Microsoft Bulgaria and several other partner organisations. The country’s mobile operators Mobiltel, Globul and Vivatel were involved in various activities and subsequently also became members of the Public Council. The host of activities and initiatives resulted in more than 100 publications, broadcasts, interviews and live TV and radio participations on different aspects of the problem of risks for children in Internet. In November 2008, jointly with the Sofia Municipality and the Bulgarian Association for Information Technologies (BAIT), a five-day cyber-festival for school children titled “My friend the computer” was held in parallel to the annual BAIT EXPO attracting hundreds of pupils, teachers and parents.
The large scale activities have also provided leverage for participation in policy formation. A Safer Internet Policy Brief with recommendations on the European Commission’s proposal for a new Safer Internet Programme and the political steps that Bulgaria needed to take in that field was developed jointly with the Center for the Study of Democracy. The Policy Brief was presented at a hearing of the Public Council to the Parliamentary Committee on European Affairs in July 2008 and the recommendations were then discussed at a follow-up round table with MPs. Through the Bulgarian Parliament the recommended changes to the European Commission proposal were transmitted to the European Parliament and presented by the EP co-rapporteurs. Finally, the text of the Commission proposal was amended, specifically as regards a new action filed in the Safer Internet Programme dedicated to “building of a knowledge base”. A draft recommendation was also introduced to the national Parliament requiring the Bulgarian State Agency for Youth and Sports to regularly report to Parliament on emerging new risks for children in Internet.
The key points of the Policy Brief and the recommended measures to Bulgarian legislators and institutions were presented at a round table in Sofia by Bulgarian MPs. They insisted for more active measures on the part of the Bulgarian public authorities in order to implement the EC recommendations for common European policies and best practices in the field of Safer Internet environment for children.
Since Safer Internet awareness raising among children is closely connected to school education, ARC Fund initiated jointly with the Association Roditeli (Parents) a project for developing and piloting a new educational course in secondary schools. In the framework of the project titled “Real and Virtual Violence: Prevention through Discourse and Interactive Education in Schools” co-financed by the Swiss Oak Foundation, a methodological guidebook for teachers was developed and has already been approved by the Ministry of Education and the Institute of Psychology of the Bulgarian Academy of Science.
With the support of the Sofia Municipality more than 6,000 pupils in 12 schools in the capital city were involved in the interactive educational coursetaught by educators trained by ARC Fund and Association Roditeli.
The positive results achieved prompted the Oak Foundation to nominate this project for Best Social Project of Year 2008 before the Tulip Foundation of the Netherlands
With the capacity and knowledge built in the field of safer Internet ARC Fund also ventured in the field of academic and empirical research and its experts co-authored the book “Teenagers’ Actions and Interactions Online in Central and Eastern Europe. Potentials and Empowerment, Risks and Victimization”,initiated by the Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
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