Author: Christina Batcheler

This article comes from The International Federation of Engineering Education Societies Webinar Series.

The rapid development and adoption of mobiles and Internet have had major impacts on society and ICT is now a key component of national development in healthcare, education, financial services, smart cities and poverty reduction. Newer technologies including AI, robotics and blockchain also will potentially have major ramifications for society. With this increasing role of technology often as part of digital transformation programs, the role of the CIO has increasingly become strategic and governments are undertaking initiatives to strengthen institutional capacity for ICT executive leadership.

The talk reviews the latest innovations in mobiles, robotics, AI, drones and blockchain and other new technologies in the context of the evolution of the role of CIOs and development of CIO institutions. What are current and potential applications, related challenges, possible future development paths, policy considerations and potential societal ramifications? How are the roles of CIO and related CIO institutions developing and adapting to the increasing possibility with greater risk and challenge of technology innovation and adoption? And how are engineering and university education changing to adapt for current and future students as well as to facilitate life long learning for graduates.

Speaker // Dr. J.P. Auffret Co-founder and Vice President International Academy of CIO

J.P. Auffret is co-founder and vice president of the International Academy of CIO. In addition, he is associate director, Center for Assurance Research and Engineering in the Volgenau School of Engineering and director, research partnerships in the School of Business at George Mason University. Auffret’s work and research span a range of applied technology fields including CIO and technology leadership, ICT governance, and cybersecurity leadership and with organizations including APEC, NSF and IBM. In addition, he has worked with World Bank and ITU on mobile and ICT for Development. His experience includes executive positions with MCI and its joint venture with British Telecom, Concert and academic positions with George Mason, Duke University’s Center for International Development and as physicist-in-residence at American University. Auffret earned a B.S. from Duke University where he was an A.B. Duke Scholar, M.B.A. from the University of Virginia and Ph.D. in Physics from American University.

For the webinar, please go here: https://youtu.be/ARudSRBzS0Y

Technology Leadership and Policy in the Age of AI, Blockchain, Robotics and 5G

The 15th International Academy of CIO Annual Conference is being held April 2021 in Arlington, VA U.S.A. and is being held at a time of great technology related opportunity and risk. With AI, Blockchain and 5G, there is opportunity in new product and services and also new industries that bridge time and space and enable greater access and speed in fields as diverse as government, healthcare, transportation and manufacturing.

And there are risks including in the fields of cybersecurity and privacy and also digital divide.

As with previous International Academy of CIO annual conferences, the 15th Annual Conference will address the potential and challenge of new technologies and applications to major world challenges such ICT and natural disasters and major world trends including ageing society and urbanization.

For the 15th Annual Conference, we are inviting research and practitioner papers and innovations related to the conference theme of “Technology Leadership and Policy in the Age of AI, Blockchain and 5G” and encompassing:

• Challenges of ICT innovation, governance and capacity building
• Strengthening leadership and institutions
• Application of new technologies including blockchain and AI
• Associated policy and policy development
• Risks including security, privacy and digital divide.

About the International Academy of CIO (IAC): The IAC or International Academy of CIO was founded in 2006 in Japan by co-founders including Japan, USA, Indonesia, Philippines, Switzerland, and Thailand. The IAC members, partnerships, and alliances now span all regions with economies such as China, Cambodia, Netherlands, India, Korea, Laos, Hong Kong, Macao, Peru, Singapore, South Africa, Nigeria, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Vietnam, Italy, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. The IAC has active participation from more than 50 countries and partners with NGOs and multilateral organizations including APEC, OECD and ITU.

The IAC promotes and facilitates CIO and IT Executive leadership education and education standards; government CIO and IT governance policies and institution building related to CIOs and CIO Councils; and application and innovation of ICT such as mobile, IoT and blockchain in areas including ICT and ageing society, smart cities, and ICT and natural disasters.

The IAC publishes the annual Waseda University – IAC Digital Government Rankings now in its 14th year and the Journal of CIO and Digital Innovation. The IAC also partners with IOS Press on a Global E-Governance book series. In education, the IAC accredits CIO master’s degree programs and provides CIO certificates to graduates as well as directly partnering on training through the Asia CIO University Network on topics including CIO and data science. The IAC hosts an annual conference and partners on conferences and workshops with governments and NGOs such as APECTEL, OECD and U.N. For more information, please go to: www.iacio.org.

About the International Academy of CIO Annual Conference: The IAC Annual Conference brings together government, private sector and academia participants to discuss and exchange ideas and best practices on ICT leadership and governance in light of rapidly changing technology. The conferences are research to practice oriented in that the talks and presentations include both strategy and practice talks and presentations by government leaders, private sector executives and NGO leaders as well as research related talks by academics.
In addition, the conferences focus on major world challenges and opportunities where ICT has the potential to contribute including the two topics of ageing society and natural disasters. The conferences are well attended by speakers and participants from around the world and are highlighted by active host government support and engagement.

Paper Topics and Important Dates:
Papers are invited that contribute to the conference sessions of:
• CIO and Digital Transformation of Economy
• Innovations in Digital Government
• Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and the Digital Future
• Cybersecurity
• Blockchain for Government
• E-Participation.

Submitted papers may refer to four dimensions of innovation, analyzed by clear data driven methods:
• Social and economic context innovations and issues: ageing society, urban transformation, healthcare system challenges, natural disasters, government’s role evolution, industry transformation, policy agendas, emerging business models, etc;
• Citizens’, patients’ and customers’ changing value drivers: empowerment, co-creation, online behavior and expectations, etc;
• Technology development and Management: challenges and ramifications of rapidly developing technologies such as robotics, autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence and major challenges such as capacity building, cyber-security, big data.
• CIO new skills and roles: Government CIO, Business CIO, CIO core competences, innovative management.

Application Timelines:
Please submit to: Luca Buccoliero at: luca.buccoliero@unibocconi.it, Elena Bellio at: elena.bellio@unibocconi.it and J.P. Auffret at: jauffret@gmu.edu.

For more IAC Call for Papers Informatino, please go to: https://iacio.org/call-for-paper-open-now-for-14th-iac-annual-conference-sept-19-taipei/.

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Scaling Local Government Cybersecurity – Written by Marissa Da Silva on September 26th, 2019

With the increasing reliance upon information technology, cybersecurity is strategic imperative for communities across the United States. Unfortunately, many cities don’t have sufficient budgets or expertise when it comes to addressing the cybersecurity challenge. Jean-Pierre (J.P) Auffret, director, research partnerships, School of Business has partnered with Angelos Stavrou, Professor, Computer Science and Director, Center for Assurance Research and Engineering in the Volgenau School and Virginia and West Virginia state and local governments to collaborate on cybersecurity and foster regional local government cybersecurity partnerships and initiatives.

The background for the National Science Foundation project is that approximately 60% of the U.S. counties have less than 50,000 residents but “nearly all counties play a critical role in the transportation and infrastructure.” Counties own 46% of the U.S. road miles, 38% of the bridges and in addition are involved in the operation of 34% of public airports, 1,943 health departments, 3,041 police and sheriff’s departments, and utility services such as water and electricity. (National Association of Counties). Many cities and counties are increasingly adopting connected technology not just for administration but also for these critical infrastructure electric, water and transportation systems.

Building upon experiences in public health and public safety, cross-jurisdictional sharing of services is a growing strategy used at local levels to address technology related challenges such as tight budgets and limited expertise. The scalable nature of technology operations makes cybersecurity a good candidate for local government collaborations.
The project’s objective is to enhance U.S. local government cybersecurity by fostering and developing institutional capacity, policies and legislation to further local government cybersecurity partnering and governance; and to facilitate cybersecurity partnering among local governments.

The project kicked off with statewide workshops in Virginia and West Virginia with participants including state and local government administrators, IT and cybersecurity leaders. Virginia Secretary of Homeland Security and Public Safety Brian Moran gave an opening talk at the Virginia workshop and West Virginia Chief Technology Officer Josh Spence and Chief Information Security Officer Danielle Cox partnered on the West Virginia workshop. The statewide workshops identified potential areas for local government cybersecurity partnering including on cybersecurity governance, joint staffing, technology procurement and communications. In addition, the workshops, identified institutional barriers to partnering.

“Local governments are increasingly providing digital citizen services and own and operate critical infrastructure, including water and electricity,” says Auffret. “Cybersecurity partnerships amongst local governments can provide the means to scale and share capability and capacity and better address the cybersecurity threat”.

Project initiatives have also included hosting Virginia regional workshops in Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula; Loudoun County, Frederick County, Purcellville and Leesburg; and Roanoke County regions. Project partners in addition to NSF, the Commonwealth of Virginia and West Virginia governments, include the Department of Homeland Security; Virginia local governments of Arlington County, Essex County, Roanoke County, Loudoun County, Caroline County, Frederick County, Town of Purcellville and Town of Leesburg; and Palo Alto Networks.

Examples of local government cybersecurity collaborations resulting from the project include: adapting Arlington County cybersecurity policies for use by other local governments; developing a Cybersecurity Awareness Messages from the CISO pamphlet; contributing to development of a Commonwealth of Virginia local government cybersecurity points of contact list for the Virginia Fusion Center and developing a Readiness Assessment, Roadmap and Toolkit for local government cybersecurity partnering.

The project is going to further expand to Ohio and Pennsylvania in fall 2019.

http://business.gmu.edu/news/1778-scaling-local-government-cybersecurity/

The International Academy of CIO (IAC) announces the topic of “Driving Digital Government Transformation by Innovative Technologies,” for the 14th Annual IAC Conference to be held on September 25 -27, 2019 in Taipei, Taiwan, hosted by Taiwan National Development Council and Taiwan E-Governance Research Center.

The conference’s speakers will include Dr. Mei-ling Chen, Minister, National Development Council, Taiwan; Dr. Liang-Gee Chen, Minister, Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan; Dr. Yu-hsieh Sung, Deputy Secretary-General, Executive Yuan, Taiwan; and Professor Toshio Obi, Director, APEC eGovernment Research Center, Waseda University and others from Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas.

Organizers of the conference believe the IAC Conference is being held at a time of great technology related opportunity and risk. Attending the conference will provide many opportunities in new product and services that enable greater access and speed in fields as diverse as government, healthcare, transportation and manufacturing and as part of broad visions such as Japan’s Society 5.0. And, there are risks including in the fields of cybersecurity and privacy and also digital divide.

As with previous International Academy of CIO (IAC) conferences, the Conference will address the potential and challenge of new technologies and applications to major world challenges such as ICT and natural disasters and major world trends including ageing society and urbanization. The IAC Conference continues to bring together government, private sector and academia participants to discuss and exchange ideas and best practices on ICT leadership and governance in light of rapidly changing technology.

For the conference Agenda and to Register, please go to: https://iac2019.ndc.gov.tw.

About the International Academy of CIO (IAC):
The IAC or International Academy of CIO was founded in 2006 in Japan by co-founders including Japan, USA, Indonesia, Philippines, Switzerland and Thailand. The IAC members, partnerships, and alliances now span all regions with economies such as China, Cambodia, Netherlands, India, Korea, Laos, Hong Kong, Macao, Peru, Singapore, South Africa, Nigeria, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Vietnam, Italy, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The IAC has active participation from more than 50 countries and partners with NGOs and multilateral organizations including APEC, OECD and ITU.

The IAC promotes and facilitates CIO and IT Executive leadership education and education standards; government CIO and IT governance policies and institution building related to CIOs and CIO Councils; and application and innovation of ICT such as mobile, IoT and blockchain in areas including ICT and ageing society, smart cities, and ICT and natural disasters.

The IAC publishes the annual Waseda University – IAC Digital Government Rankings now in its 14th year and the Journal of CIO and Digital Innovation. The IAC also partners with IOS Press on a Global E-Governance book series. In education, the IAC accredits CIO master’s degree programs and provides CIO certificates to graduates as well as directly partnering on training through the Asia CIO University Network on topics including CIO and data science. The IAC hosts an annual conference and partners on conferences and workshops with governments and NGOs such as APECTEL, OECD and U.N. For more information about IAC, please go to: https://iacio.org.

For more information, please contact current IAC President, J.P. Auffret at jauffret@gmu.edu.

On January 1, 2019, Taiwan’s executive branch of government began implementing the Cyber Security Management Act which was enacted by the President on June 6, 2018 and passed by the Legislative Yuan in May 2018. Chih Ho Chou’s time at Mason will contribute to his work on this task force implementing the Act. He will also study, review, compare, and contrast U.S. and Taiwan strategies and approaches to cybersecurity governance related the Act which he must implement. In addition, he will research the cybersecurity strategy and laws in the U.S., and try to compare with Taiwan.

We sat down with Chih Ho Chou and asked him some questions:

Q: What will you be working on and doing while you are at Mason?

A: To effectively reduce and control government agencies’ cyber security risks, the Taiwan government has strengthened cybersecurity governance. We started instructing government agencies on how to introduce the cybersecurity governance maturity assessment model in 2014 in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the cybersecurity governance in the organizations. As of the end of 2016, ten government agencies have held trial runs of the model. In the future, we will not only actively facilitate all government agencies to adopt the cybersecurity governance maturity model and regularly conduct self-evaluation, but we also aim to establish evaluation mechanisms by third parties for government agencies. Through a fair judgement of third parties, all agencies will be guided to enhance their cybersecurity governance to move toward established, predictable, and even innovating organizations.

In addition, the “Cyber Security Management Act” was promulgated on June 6, 2018, with six regulations (Enforcement Rules of Cyber Security Management Act, Regulations for Classification of Cyber Security Responsibility Levels, Regulations for Reporting and Responding Cyber Security Incidents, Regulations for Inspecting Implementation Status of Non-official Agencies’ Cyber Security Maintenance Programs, Regulations for Sharing Cyber Security Information, Award and Punishment Regulations on Cyber Security Affairs for the Public Servants of the Public Official Agencies). The Act was officially implemented on January 1 2019. Subsequently, we need to focus on how it works in practice in Taiwan.

Q: How will your time here at Mason help with your work?

A: As the Internet becomes both faster and more dangerous, it is important to create pre-protect and post-protect mechanisms for the whole system. The goal that I’d like to achieve is to always remain on the cutting edge of cybersecurity defense, both technically and policy-wise. Mason offers me a very good research environment. There are plenty of research resources. Professor J.P. also provides me with some valuable advice on my research.

Q: Please share with me a quote about what this time at Mason has meant to you?

A: My motto of learning is simple, to “practice what you preach.” I always seek to be the first in line to face problems and to think of strategies to overcome the overwhelming pressure before my team. In academia, if I did not guide my students on how to conduct their research, I would find them being like ants scurrying around the base of the tree in bewilderment. In my role in government, I take great risk and responsibility to solve every problem to make people feel safe, draw them into a circle of trust. I want to continually empower myself to learn how to discover potential threats, face problems with courage and come up with better strategies and solutions for every single task.
As Ghandi said, we need to “Be the change that we wish to see in the world.”

Q: What were you working on in your country?

A: Since Aug. 2016, I have been the Section Chief in the Department of Cyber Security, Executive Yuan, Government of Taiwan. During the past five years, my main job is to develop and promote the cybersecurity related plans and strategies, including Cybersecurity Management Act, cyber offensive and defensive exercise (CODE), cybersecurity risk management, cyber security audit program, cyber security incidents report and defense mechanism, critical information infrastructure protection (CIIP), cyber security united defense mechanism (security operation center, computer emergency response team, information sharing and analysis center), government configuration baseline (GCB) and so on.
Q: What will you bring back to your home country from this time in the US at Mason?

A: As the person of section chief who leads the team in the Department of Cyber Security, Executive Yuan, Taiwan, I believe the accomplishment of my learning can steer to fruitful results. The foreseeable projects that I am working on are Promotional Proposal for National Cyber Security Program of Taiwan 2021-2023, The Cyber Security Flagship Project – Critical Information Infrastructure Protection, Cyber Security Management Act Review, and Cyber Security Policy White Paper. The knowledge and qualities I will gain in the US at Mason will be indispensable in helping me to take a lead and implement on my work.

Countries in all regions of the world are continuing to make strides in efforts to enhance Digital Government and foster digital innovation according to a new report launched today by The Institute of D-Government at Waseda University, Tokyo in cooperation with the International Academy of CIO (IAC).

The Institute of Digital Government, Waseda University headed by Dr. Toshio Obi, published the results today of the 2018 Waseda-IAC International Digital Government Ranking Survey. This is the 14th annual survey with the first published in 2005.

The 2018 ranking survey marks Denmark jumping to first place, followed by Singapore in 2nd, the United Kingdom in 3rd, Estonia in 4th, the USA in 5th, South Korea in 6th, Japan in 7th, Sweden in 8th, Taiwan in 9th, and Australia ranked 10th.

“Most governments have increased their excellent achievements in citizen-centric approach and demand-pull online services,” says Dr. Toshio Obi, professor at Waseda University’s Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies and director of the APEC Institute of e-Government at Waseda University. “This report also provides an early warning signal against increasing digital gap and innovation among nations,” he added.

Dr. J.P. Auffret, President of the International Academy of CIO and professor at George Mason University notes that ”many countries have increased their focus on Digital Government and the application of technology to foster economic growth and their efforts are reflected in the Rankings. For example Kazakhstan has moved from 24th in 2017 to 18th in 2018, UAE from 40th to 34th, Hong Kong from 24th to 18th, Finland from 18th to 13th, Norway from 16th to 11th, Switzerland from 23rd to 12th and Malaysia from 36th to 25th.”

The 2018 rankings also point to significant trends in the usage of ICT in government activities. The report shows that there are some new trends which will potentially have major impacts in the coming years. These include:
(1) Re-definition of e-government to Digital Government
(2) Usage of AI and IoT for Digital Government
(3) Expanding the Scale of Smart City and e-local government
(4) Blockchain Technology for Digital Government
(5) Digital Government for AntiCorruption.

In addition to the above trends, the report noted six challenges for Digital Government to contribute to addressing. They are digital innovation with cloud computing, IoT and AI; ageing society; globalization of open innovation; digital divide for global and local communities; urbanization with mega smart cites; and cooperation between central and local governments.

This survey is conducted by the distinguished experts from Waseda University and ten world-class universities under the umbrella of the International Academy of CIO. These institutions are Waseda University (Japan), Peking University (China), George Mason University, (USA), Thammasat University (Thailand), Bandung Institute of Technology (Indonesia), National University of Singapore (Singapore), RANEPA (Russia),University of Turku (Finland), Bocconi University (Italy), Taiwan e-Governance Research Center (Taiwan) and De La Salle University (Philippines).

Ten main indicators and 35 sub-indicators were utilized in developing the Digital Government Rankings in 2018. The survey continues as in 2017 by considering 65 countries (economies). The indicators include: Network Preparedness, Management Optimization, Online Services, National Portal, Government CIO, D-Government Promotion, E-Participation / Digital Inclusion, Open Government, Cybersecurity and Use of Emerging ICT. As an example, for the Indicator of “Use of Emerging ICT,” the leading five countries / economies are: Singapore, Denmark, UK, USA and South Korea.

For the details, a full ranking report on 2018 Rankings with all 65 Country Reports can be found at: http://e-gov.waseda.ac.jp/pdf/The_2018_Waseda-IAC_Digital_Government_Rankings_Report.pdf and also on the IAC homepage at: http://iacio.org.

About the International Academy of CIO (IAC): Founded in 2005, the International Academy of CIO (IAC) is an international NGO headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. The IAC fosters the exchange and adoption of best practices on CIO and IT executive leadership, as well as with IT organizations and government IT institutions. The IAC promotes and facilitates CIO and IT executive leadership education; government CIO and IT governance legislation and institution building; and global standards for CIO education. The IAC has 15 country chapters; active participation from governments, private sector and universities in more than 50 countries; and partnerships with World Bank, APEC, OECD and U.N. University. For more information: http://iacio.org.