Italy’s digitisation minister has big goals and a big budget
THE HOMELAND of Galileo and Marconi has proved unexpectedly resistant to digital Technology. Many Italians adopted mobile phones while they were still a rarity in other countries, including America. Yet the share who regularly use the internet is no higher than in Turkey.文章源自The Economist Digest-https://te.qinghe.me/123.html
That partly reflects Italy’s elderly population: it has the EU’s highest median age. But Riccardo Luna, formerly his country’s representative in the European Commission’s Digital Champions Expert Group, says other factors have also played a role. For eight of the ten years from 2001 to 2011, Italy’s prime minister was Silvio Berlusconi, a TV magnate for whom the internet represented a commercial danger. Telecom Italia, the country’s dominant land line operator, had an interest in slowing the introduction of broadband to maintain the value of its main asset, a copper cable network. In 2020 the share of Italian adults who had used the internet in the previous three months was just 78%—the second-lowest in the EU.文章源自The Economist Digest-https://te.qinghe.me/123.html
The man charged with changing that is Vittorio Colao, once the boss of Vodafone. Last year Mario Draghi, the prime minister, recruited Mr Colao to be his minister for digital transition. Thanks to the EU’s colossal post-pandemic recovery fund, Mr Colao has more than €40bn ($44bn) to work with. One goal is to help industry digitise. Another is to bring extra-fast broadband to schools and health clinics, as well as providing broadband and 5 G mobile networks to remote areas. Mr Colao also wants to help the 3m or so Italians who have been left behind by the digital revolution acquire basic computer skills, and to streamline public access to government, largely through smartphone apps.文章源自The Economist Digest-https://te.qinghe.me/123.html
In that realm, Italy has made impressive progress. Matteo Renzi, a techno-evangelist who was prime minister in 2014-16, launched several projects that have been implemented under his successors. Mr Colao flourishes his smartphone and points to an app called Io (“I”): “I can now pay my social-security contributions for my domestic help directly from this. I showed it to a German politician. He was open-mouthed with astonishment.”文章源自The Economist Digest-https://te.qinghe.me/123.html
Io and a clutch of similar apps appeared just as covid-19 was spreading in Italy, confining Italians to their homes and encouraging them to become more digitally savvy. The pandemic has helped in other ways too. “We were not a nation of e-shoppers,” says Mr Colao. “And yet [e-commerce] has now become absolutely normal.”文章源自The Economist Digest-https://te.qinghe.me/123.html
One of his biggest challenges, he says, is convincing businesspeople to invest in digital initiatives. The other is getting officials to integrate systems and harmonise procedures. Digitisation in the public sector has been haphazard. There are an estimated 11,000 databases spread across national, regional, provincial and municipal government. “We spend our time arguing with other ministries and local authorities,” says Mr Colao. “Digital does not need to be centralised, but it does need to be homogenous.”文章源自The Economist Digest-https://te.qinghe.me/123.html
The rewards are potentially immense. Two of the biggest reasons why the Italian economy has stagnated since the turn of the century have been low productivity and a stubbornly inefficient bureaucracy. Tens of billions of euros will help to tackle both. As Mr Colao admits, ensuring they are spent wisely can be frustrating. “But I always say that if I weren’t frustrated I wouldn’t be doing my job.” ■文章源自The Economist Digest-https://te.qinghe.me/123.html 文章源自The Economist Digest-https://te.qinghe.me/123.html
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