eTampere - Social Engineering of Knowledge Society

• Director, Prof. Jarmo Viteli
• www.etampere.fi
• jarmo.viteli@etampere.fi
• Satakunnankatu 18 A
• 33100 Tampere, Finalnd

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The objective of the eTampere knowledge society programme is to make Tampere the spearhead city of knowledge society development by strengthening the knowledge base, by creating new business and by developing new public online services that ease the daily life of all citizens. eTampere has recognized that the technology-oriented stage is over. Citizens want information and applications that make their lives simpler and better. Here and now, not just in the future. eTampere promotes cooperation between enterprise, research, education and the public sector so that the information society will become a natural part of everyday life for all citizens, without discrimination.

The programme is implemented by six independent subprogrammes, which cooperate with each other and various other players. These subprogrammes represent the technical, economical, cultural and social dimensions of information society. They are Research & Evaluation Laboratory (RELab), Technology engine programmes, eAccelerator, eBusiness Research Centre (eBRC), Information Society Institute (ISI) and Infocity. Each of them are runned by the City of Tampere, University of Tampere, Tampere University of Technology, Tampere Technology Centre Ltd or Technical Research Centre of Finland.

The general achievements consist of projects, international conferences, educational programmes, new companies, venture capital for accelerated companies, new public on-line services but also new models of cooperation, new networks, etc. The programme advances according to plan (project portfolio 55,6 million euros, realization rate 114 % by 30.6.2003). The proportion of finance from enterprises and international sources has increased in total funding. Ca. 450 researchers and more than 150 enterprises participate in over 150 eTampere projects. 11 of them are international projects.

Areas of emphasis for the near future are active, participating and influential citizenship (increasing opportunities for influence and participation..), developing expertise and business development (eBusiness service..), development of service innovations (support for and development of service processes with information and communication technologies..), more in-depth international cooperation.

The purpose in my presentation is to describe the challenge of socially led knowledge society engineering. How engineers and social sciences can work together with city administration, business people and academics ? How to reach common understanding of the needs of the ordinary citizens and how to serve them with new services and processes ? This eTampere approach has now been implementing three years and both success stories as well as biggest failures will be described and analysed.

Jarmo Viteli has been professor since 1999 at the Hypermedialaboratory, University of Tampere. Since 2001 he has been director of eTampere-programme. Prof. Viteli is actively involved in many academic activities in the area of information society and new forms knowledge construction and education.