PRESS RELEASE
25, October 1995
The IT challenge:
Hulth summons to the challenge

Finansborgarrådet (Financial Commissioner) Mats Hulth has fired the starting gun for the race to represent Stockholm in the major IT event “The Bangemann Challenge”. The competition does more than emphasise a high technical level; the most important thing is the good that the project does for ordinary people. But time is short: the closing date for candidates’ applications is 20 November, and the Stockholm winners will be announced at the turn of the year.

Some time ago, Stockholm challenged every city in the EU with more than 400 000 inhabitants to take part in the IT competition “The Bangemann Challenge”. The competition has ten classes, corresponding to the areas that EU IT Commissioner Martin Bangemann considers the most important ones for Europe.
The starting gun for the race to decide which projects will represent Stockholm has now been fired. The closing day for applications is 20 November, and the Stockholm winners will be announced at the turn of the year. Since it is an IT competition, applicants can of course apply via the Internet (www.stockholm.se), where an application form is available.
Everyone who is actively involved with IT can take part in the competition -- companies, the public sector and official bodies. The judges will not be looking for the “hottest” project with the highest technical level but usefulness to the public and a positive effect on society.

Read about it on the Internet
You can read about all the projects that have been entered and, after New Year 1996, about all the non-Swedish projects that are taking part.
“We want to put forward good examples”, explains Per Jundin. “The projects must be very concrete and be able to show results not later than 31 December 1996, when ‘The Bangemann Challenge’ ends.
Seven cities have already taken up the challenge, and there are still two months in which to apply. So far, Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht in the Netherlands, Antwerp in Belgium, Edinburgh in Scotland and Hanover in Germany have applied.
Antwerp has applied in six classes, the others in two or three.
“Several have applied to take part in the ‘IT highway into the home’ class. In the Netherlands the cable network reaches 98% of the population, so there is ample potential in that particular class”, says Per Jundin, project leader for The Bangemann Challenge.

Stockholm is taking part in every class
The expansion of the Stockholm optic fibre cable network by Stokab means that the Swedish capital can also run projects of a similar nature.
Another project that may be entered in the competition is Nutek’s work on citizen offices; this comes into the “Public administration” class.
Mats Hulth, a Stockholm financial commissioner, is not afraid of the other competitors.
“Stockholm is well in the lead and we obviously want companies and universities to cooperate well. After all, this is one of the aims of the competition. We have entered every class of this ‘decathlon’, so we challenge everyone with an interesting IT project to take up the challenge. /ins

Footnote: The ten competition classes are: teleworking, distance learning, networks for universities, tele-service for small and medium-sized companies, traffic control, air traffic control, health care, electronic enquiry, public administration, the IT highway to the home.

For further information:
Per Jundin
Bangemann Challenge
Box 6820
S-113 86 Stockholm
Sweden
Phone: +46 8 671 7130
Fax: +46 8 671 7129
Email: bangemann@challenge.stockholm.se




BACKGROUND TO THE BANGEMANN CHALLENGE


In 1994, EU Commissioner Martin Bangemann submitted his report “Europe and the Global Information Society”. The report considers IT primarily in terms of its usefulness to human beings. It highlights the importance of building up networks and cooperation between the EU countries in the field of IT so that Europe does not fall behind compared with developments in the USA and Japan. The report sets out a comprehensive IT strategy and a number of actions in ten key keys areas:

These areas are:
* teleworking
* distance learning
* networks for universities
* tele-service for small and medium-sized companies
* traffic control
* air traffic control
* health care
* electronic enquiry
* public administration
* the IT highway to the home.

At the EU Summit on Corfu in the summer of 1994, the Bangemann Report was accepted as a Commission document.
The City of Stockholm has challenged all EU cities with more than 400 000 inhabitants to an IT competition in the ten key areas. The competition, called The Bangemann Challenge, will run throughout 1996. At the beginning of 1997 the winner in each class will be chosen by a jury of representatives from, among others, the EU Commission and the academic world. The jury will consider above all the usefulness of the project for daily life and also its potential for saving users money. The prize is free space at the Stockholm Exposition 97. Stockholm will be taking competing in all ten classes; other cities may choose which class or classes they wish to compete in.
The cities function as coordinators; it is the projects that compete. The projects may be run, for instance, within companies, universities, organisations, authorities or the public sector.


For further information:
Per Jundin
Bangemann Challenge
Box 6820
S-113 86 Stockholm
Sweden
Phone: +46 8 671 7130
Fax: +46 8 671 7129
Email: bangemann@challenge.stockholm.se