Scytl Enhancing Governance through ICT solutions World Bank, Washington, DC - September 2011 Pere Valles Chief Executive Officer pere.valles@scytl.com
Index About Scytl Electoral modernization e-democracy Conclusion
About Scytl Who we are Specialized in the research, development and implementation of highly innovative and secure solutions for Electoral Modernization and edemocracy. Worldwide leader in the Internet voting public sector market with a 80% market share in the last 3 years (14 out of 16 countries). Founded as a spin-off from a leading University research group, author of the first two European PhD theses on security applied to elections and e-democracy. Core technology based on groundbreaking cryptography developed over 17 years of research. Clear reference in the e-electoral and e-democracy markets, having advised international institutions and governmental agencies. Efficient and reliable processes certified ISO 9001-2008.
About Scytl Worldwide presence Our offices: Barcelona (Spain) Washington D.C. (USA) Toronto (Canada) New Delhi (India) Bratislava (Slovakia) Singapore (Singapore) Athens (Greece) Where we work: Canada USA Mexico Peru Argentina Finland Norway The UK France Spain Switzerland The EU Austria Slovakia BiH Ethiopia The UAE India The Philippines Australia South Africa
Index About Scytl Electoral modernization e-democracy Conclusion
Urgent need for reforms Public services reform is high on the agenda due to 3 trends that are having a worldwide impact on governments: Crisis of government legitimacy: increasing mistrut in political leaders urging need to have people s voice heard demand for more transparency and accountability Political crisis Economic crisis Global financial crisis in developed economies: budgets cuts in developing economies: slower economic growth Access to technology Growing access to technology: better informed citizens internet and cell phones social networks cheaper technologies and infrastructures
ICT for more accountable governments At the heart of the debate around transforming public services is the need for governments to engage better with citizens to be more accountable and transparent. ICT can provide useful tools to improve public services and can facilitate citizen engagement. There are two areas in which ICT can have a significant impact on government legitimacy and accountability. Electoral modernization brings security and transparency to elections, enhancing e-democracy legitimacy. brings government closer to citizens, enhancing their accountability.
Scytl and good governance Scytl uses pioneering technology to enhance governments legitimacy and accountability Electoral Modernization Scytl works with governments in the successful deployment of ICT in elections, automating every phase of the electoral process, making the conduct of polls more efficient guaranteeing the highest integrity and security standards. e-democracy Scytl s e-democracy platform fosters a positive dialogue between citizens & public institutions by: bringing governments closer to their citizens, enfranchising all population groups, enabling appropriate conflict mitigation solutions, giving people a voice in their future.
Index About Scytl Electoral modernization e-democracy Conclusion 9
Electoral modernization With governments facing increasing pressure to keep costs down, improve performance and increase security, automating electoral processes appears to be the next natural step in the evolution towards more transparent democracies. Automating every aspect of electoral operations increases efficiency by: reducing costs enhancing transparency Increasing security maximizing productivity standardizing the election workflow.
Success case: India e-voting Need & challenge In order to boost voter participation and avoid traditional long queues, the State Election Commission (SEC) of Gujarat, India decided to implement a secure internet voting solution, accessible to illiterate voters, to be used in different elections during 5 years Solution Internet voting with SMS authentication Possibility to vote from home or polling places Voting platform available in Gujarati & English Supporting more than 100 simultaneous elections Key facts First Internet voting project in India System to be used in elections for 5 years 50M potential voters Increased turnout by 28 points Integration with new voter registration system and single sign-on technology Training and support provided to SEC Benefits Reached more voters while using current administrative divisions and responsibilities Voters participation through the OVS reached up to 68% versus the 40% that was reached through traditional paper ballot process
Success case: Bosnia EMS Need & challenge In order to further improve the administration and transparency of elections in BiH, increase public trust and confidence in the democratic process and strengthen the capacity of the CEC to administer elections and enforce related legislation, the CEC started a project that would enable one unique IT platform to optimize the management of elections from 2010 and beyond. Solution Election preparation, processing and certifications of candidates and political parties, printing of the ballots User interface in Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian and support of Latin and Cyrillic scripts. Results consolidation, tabulation and mandate assignment. Generation of reports for the official gazette, statistics and numerous reports. Election Night Reporting, publishing preliminary and final results on the Internet, consolidated by region, entity, race, candidates and political parties. Benefits Key facts Country-wide integrated EMS Covers the complete Election lifecycle Consolidation of election results in 3 hours Used in the 2010 General Elections Preliminary 2010 General Election results were available much faster than in previous elections. Positive feedback from USAID, OSCE and CEC BiH.
Success case: UAE e-voting Need & challenge Willing to carry-out secure and undisputable elections, the Ministry for the Federal National Council Affairs needed a secure electronic voting solution to be used in elections of September 2011 and beyond Solution Scytl provided its e-voting solution that allows secure e-voting from polling places Solution capable of supporting simultaneous elections on all seven Emirates with independent results handling Voting system integrated with EIDA e-id card to authenticate identity of voters Key facts First binding Internet voting project in the region System to be used in elections for several years Integration with nation ID card State-of-the-art security Voting system deployed in all seven Emirates in 13 different Voting Centers Benefits Faster, secure and easy to use voting solution, capable to generate integrated results in short period of time Encourages the first use of e-id card promoting the update and validation of the identification card of more than 130.000 voters
Index About Scytl Electoral modernization e-democracy Conclusion
e-democracy The e-democracy Platform is composed of several independent and complementary modules: Central System Configuration of the web portal and of any surveys carried out per Internet or by agents. Gathering, classification & processing of the information. Citizen Web Portal Information publication, project tracking & satisfaction assessment. Field Agent Interactive Informative Educative econsultations Sensitive surveys, Referendums, Internal elections, are carried out via Internet Educates communities Records community satisfaction & project performance Reports project status to the communities
e-democracy Scytl s edemocracy Platform provides a very flexible and powerful tool for improving democratic and governance processes. It includes applications to fulfill the four main phases involved in a participatory process, allowing the central storage of all useful information so that it can be infinitely queried for monitoring, evaluation and reporting.
e-democracy Gathering information & enabling dialogue Decision Making Follow-up Dissemination Scytl s edemocracy Platform facilitates constructive dialogue and allows the gathering of useful information, allowing institutions to make more informed decisions and represent their constituents more appropriately: Citizens can introduce ideas and concepts and discuss them with their peers. Citizens can be directly consulted by government and public institutions on multiple issues. Agents in the field can interface with citizens and communities and report their needs. Citizens can directly provide useful information to governments and public institutions.
e-democracy Gathering information & enabling dialogue Decision Making Follow-up Dissemination Scytl s edemocracy Platform includes several tools to facilitate the decision making process using different information sources and tools such as: Data-mining Data classification Semantics Advanced multifactor technologies decision-making algorithms
e-democracy Gathering information & enabling dialogue Decision Making Follow-up Dissemination Institutions, once decisions have been made, need to follow up with related activities to assess their real impact in the field and the perceptions of the targeted population. Our edemocracy Platform allows institutions to easily: Keep track of the on-going projects Assessing their impact based on objective factors Assessing their impact based on subjective factors All this information is organized and classified in a way that allows its future use when making similar decisions.
e-democracy Gathering information & enabling dialogue Decision Making Follow-up Dissemination Institutions need to communicate their decisions back to the multiple stakeholders involved as well as to conduct on-going monitoring, evaluation and reporting. Scytl s edemocracy Platform incorporates multiple options and tools for the dissemination and publicity of decisions and results: Mobile and Web interfaces Field agents Conventional media Other channels conventional phones Internet available in the region
Success case: UE - My University Need & challenge Improve the decision making processes in the higher education environment at European level, fostering the cooperation and interaction between governments, higher education institutions, students and others. Solution e-participation platform that increases the participation of the University members and stakeholders in the decision making processes Integration of different e-participation tools to allow the interaction between the different members, such as: Forums e-petitions Internet voting and consultations Key facts Cross-European e-participation platform Participation of 17 European Universities Involvement of different level of stakeholders Specialized support and consultancy services on e-participation A Centralized Portal and integration of different technologies to facilitate the cooperation between Universities Benefits Empowering all university members and stakeholders in the higher education decision process, by the means of a transparent and extremely user friendly e-participation platform
Success case: Spain Consensus Need Localret is public entity that represents more than 900 local councils of Catalonia (Spain) that needed an upgrade its current participation platform Consensus. Solution Scytl provided a new participation platform, more flexible and secure Also added new functionalities Scytl developed the new version of the Consensus platform The new system is currently used by over 60 Spanish city councils to carry out citizen participation processes Key facts Upgrade of a participation platform Currently used by more than 60 municipalities Easy customization Benefits A unique installation technically managed by Localret allows to create independent portals for each city Civil servants are able to manage each city portal and activate different participation processes
Index About Scytl Electoral modernization e-democracy Conclusion
Conclusion A consensus democracy fosters increased community involvement in determining the political agenda and in the decision-making process itself. Communities that can express themselves in a cooperative and simple manner can communicate their real needs to the different institutional levels more efficiently and obtain faster and more accurate results. ICT offer a more efficient and cost-effective way to provide public services to citizens and to gather their opinion for decision-making process. Scytl offers a wide range of solutions helping governments be more transparent, more accountable and increase their legitimacy among citizens.
Pere Valles Chief Executive Officer pere.valles@scytl.com