Will Leonardo be the pivot of the national public cloud hub?
What the Minister for Technological Innovation, Vittorio Colao, in the House said and did not say about 5G and Cloud Pa . The indiscretions of the newspaper La Verità su Leonardo and the analysis of the Repubblica on Huawei.
First: "We want citizens to have a single digital identity and interact with the PA through a single digital" counter ", through which they can consult their personal data, request and obtain permits, track them if they do not arrive on time, and pay services".
Second: “For the most sensitive data we intend to create a National Strategic Pole with public control, located on Italian soil and with high guarantees, including jurisdictional ones. The Strategic Pole will make it possible to rationalize and consolidate many of those centers that are currently unable to guarantee adequate safety standards. At the same time, the investment in state-of-the-art infrastructures will allow us to fully seize the opportunities of cloud computing and help PAs to make the provision of services more efficient ”.
These are two salient passages highlighted yesterday by the minister for technological innovation and digital transition, Vittorio Colao, during the hearing in the Chamber.
THE NATIONAL STRATEGIC POLE WITH PUBLIC CONTROL
The passage on the creation of a "National Strategic Pole under public control" is significant.
THE INDISCRIPTIONS OF THE DAILY THE TRUTH ABOUT LEONARDO AND CLOUD
Words that indirectly confirm the rumors of the newspaper La Verità a few days ago: “A state financial player (which could be CDP) and other interlocutors will play an essential role. In the front row Leonardo ”.
COLAO AND HUAWEI SECOND REPUBLIC
A high aspect of the minister's hearing was underlined today by the newspaper Repubblica : “Colao – who addresses the deputies of the Transport commission – is extremely prudent when he speaks of China. Do not dismiss Eastern companies (read Huawei) that provide programs and structures for the construction of 5G networks as a danger ”.
HERE IS THE FULL TEXT OF THE HEARING OF MINISTER COLAO:
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Madam President, Honorable Deputies and Deputies,
Thank you for this opportunity which allows me to illustrate the strategic vision we are developing to support the digital transformation process.
In particular, I would like to focus on the lines of action to support the digital transition in the PA. I will talk, in order, about digital infrastructures, the cloud, data, digital security and skills.
Before going into the merits of the measures, I would like to reiterate a concept that is very important to me. It concerns the current state of uncertainty due to the pandemic crisis, which has been going on for over a year, and which pushes many to look to the horizon with concern. It is comprensible.
That is why, as a government, we must work decisively to transform this period of worry into an occasion for transformation, by restoring trust to our citizens. To get there we do not have to wait for events, but we must plan, today, interventions that citizens can appreciate in their daily life. Interventions that significantly improve their lives.
The digital transition is our opportunity to plan these interventions and realize that future, with determination, a spirit of collaboration and, allow me, that creativity and desire to experiment that is the basis of innovation.
In Italy we need to reactivate growth as and perhaps more than any other European nation. In Italy – although we all apparently support innovation and investment – we have traditionally experienced resistance to change and very low speed of investment implementation.
The Prime Minister has also mentioned this several times: we must work towards radical, pervasive and long-term change. Otherwise not only will we not make up for lost time, but we will risk falling further behind. We can't afford it anymore.
1. FIRST POINT OF THE DIGITAL TRANSITION STRATEGY: DETERMINATION
Our strategy is based on three cardinal principles. The first is that of determination. I believe we need to be more decisive in the implementation of strategic digital transition measures. Two circumstances impose it on us:
– On the one hand, the speed and pervasiveness of technological change, which now affects our lives on every front. It's about our interactions, in private and professional life. It affects all forms and models of production and business, on all scales. It enhances – if well implemented – the opportunities for individual learning and growth, reducing inequity and inequalities. It even transforms the times and ways in which we inform ourselves, express our ideas and participate in the construction of collective decisions. The digital transition is, by its nature, horizontal, equitable and democratizing.
– On the other hand, the structural gaps in our country, and the cumulative delay on the innovation and digital infrastructure front. Hence the urgent need to remedy these delays, with the help of the PNRR and in favor, above all, of the new generations, women and less prosperous territories.
Acting resolutely means quickly defining the scope of interventions, and focusing every effort on their implementation. For us, both the perimeter and the implementation horizon are fully part of the framework traced by the European Union with the digital compass.
Digital Compass indicates the compass that orients public policies towards the digital 'north'. The European objectives are clear and ambitious:
– For citizens, the European Union intends to ensure that 80% have and regularly use digital identity. It also intends to accompany this effort, always supporting the development of digital skills for at least 80% of the European population.
– For families, it intends to reach everyone, 100%, with ultra-broadband connections by 2030.
– For the more than 25 million companies currently operating on the territory of the Union, the digital compass intends to bring 75% of them to permanently use cloud services, artificial intelligence and Big Data. Not only. The Union also aims to foster the growth of startups and double the number of unicorns –startups that are worth more than a billion dollars – in the Union.
– For the public sector, digital compass sets the most ambitious goal: to deliver – by 2030 – all key public services online. Public services delivered quickly and efficiently will in turn enable citizens to benefit from the effects of the digital economy.
Brussels intends to achieve all these digital innovation goals within ten years. We too, and thanks to the PNRR, want to be ambitious. We want, and can, be in the leading group in Europe.
Today I propose 5-year goals, to be among the best countries at the end of 2026:
1. We can aim to have at least 70% of the population regularly use digital identity in 2026 – more than double what we do today;
2. We want at least 70% of the population to be digitally capable;
3. We have the plan to bring about 75% of Italian PAs to use cloud services;
4. We aim to reach at least 80% of key public services delivered online.
5. And above all we want, in collaboration with market operators and the MISE, to reach 100% of Italian families and businesses with ultra-broadband networks.
These are ambitious goals because they will allow us already in 2026 to get very close to the European ones with still 4 years of work to complete the work.
2. SECOND POINT OF THE DIGITAL TRANSITION STRATEGY: COOPERATIVE
The second principle of our strategy is cooperation. In fact, the digital transition, as it is horizontal, explicitly requires us to involve all the players in this effort.
– I am speaking, first of all, of the fundamental cooperation of the whole administrative, central and territorial apparatus. The Interministerial Committee for the digital transition was created with this very purpose: to facilitate a shared working method between the government structures involved at every level, giving renewed political and administrative attention to the digitalization of the PA. To this end, we are creating two consultative offices of the Department for Digital Transition: one with local PA representatives and one with ICT experts. We want to listen and react to the needs of the territory and administrations. Together we will identify the obstacles to be removed and the opportunities for acceleration.
– The cooperation of all the productive forces of the country will also be needed. Large companies, small and medium-sized enterprises, artisans, traders, trade organizations, freelancers. All are called to make their contribution to the realization of the common goals of digitization.
– Finally, I am referring to cooperation on a European and Atlantic scale. I'm talking about the theme of digital autonomy. Yes, we want to develop autonomous spaces on technologies that make us more competitive, as a country and as a continent, but always safeguarding the freedom and individual rights to experiment and undertake. Because true digital autonomy can only be achieved by giving more space to innovation, skills and opening up to opportunities, guaranteeing everyone, especially young people.
3. THIRD POINT OF THE DIGITAL TRANSITION STRATEGY: PEOPLE
And here I move on to our last cardinal principle. Because determination and cooperation alone are not enough. The essential element of any transformation, and especially the digital one, are obviously people.
If we really want to change the gear of innovation in Italy, we will have to mobilize investments, but above all we will have to invest in the creative and innovative value that derives from individual skills and collective knowledge.
Continuous training of employed and non-employed, cutting-edge scientific research, experimentation and study are just as important as investment plans. School, university, training and free experimentation are what will allow us to unleash the potential of people and the country between now and 2030.
AREAS OF INTERVENTION OF THE DIGITAL TRANSITION
We now come to our lines of action, which I will describe in five areas that define our digital transition strategy.
I list them quickly, before going through them in more detail. First, the modernization and extension of digital infrastructures for connectivity on the national territory. Second, for the PA, the development of the cloud and – where appropriate – the collaboration with the services of the private world. Third, the potential of interoperability – that is, of data that can be used to offer digital services to citizens, thus reducing costly and repeated in-person interactions with the PA. The security of IT systems and the development of digital skills close the list.
DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE
The first area of intervention to implement the digital transition process is that of digital infrastructures for connectivity.
Connectivity, for us, is a right. Here we want to act decisively and quickly because the accumulated delays are becoming intolerable. I will not repeat today that FTTH coverage – Fiber to the Home – is unsatisfactory for a large country like Italy with 34% of families reached.
We read, write and talk every minute of the internet as a multiplier of possibilities. But we cannot guarantee these multiple possibilities with the current infrastructure level. If we do not intervene, we risk denying rights and fueling old inequalities and even creating new ones.
In fact, leaving areas of the country uncovered means limiting their residents in the opportunities for training, creation, work and civics that the digital dimension offers today. Stefano Rodotà and Gaetano Azzariti thirty years ago invoked the explicit inclusion of the right of internet access among the constitutional rights. We are in 2021 …
With regard to connectivity, the territorial situation must also be assessed. The ICity Rank Report edited by Forum PA draws up the ranking of the most digital Italian cities every year. In that of 2020 the ranking of the top ten includes only cities in the North, except for one, in ninth place: Cagliari. This means that those who are lucky enough to live in a residential area of a medium or large city, located in Northern Italy, are served by a significantly better network infrastructure level than those who are in other areas of the country, on the outskirts. or on the islands.
Broadband network infrastructure and access to the network is therefore an essential intervention to ensure social and territorial cohesion, because it allows us to achieve enabling results in terms of protecting the rights of all and reducing the various gaps.
– First of all, it allows us to reduce, to zero, the social exclusion of the categories at risk. First of all, those who do not have access to or familiar with technology: the elderly, the economically most disadvantaged classes of the population, ethnic and linguistic minorities, the disabled, the prison population. In some cases even young people. Distance learning imposed by the pandemic emergency has, for example, affected the increase in school drop-out and the familiarity of thousands of Italian adolescents with studying.
– It makes it possible to guarantee flexibility and innovation in production processes. The Nòmisma and Crif Observatory dedicated to analyzing the social impact of the pandemic has estimated that in 2021 at least 16% of the Italian workforce will work remotely. This is about 1 million public employees and 4 million private sector workers. Companies and public administrations therefore have an absolute need for reliable technologies. Not only. Through technologies such as 5G it will be possible to develop innovative services and processes. Suffice it to say that in Italy, in the last year alone, the use of the Internet of Things has grown by 24%.
– Again, equal access will be increasingly fundamental also to develop more democratic and participatory processes. There is increasing talk of "co-creation" of public services to describe public decision-making processes fueled by knowledge distributed among the population, through digital platforms. The Conference on the Future of Europe will consult European citizens through a digital platform.
– Finally, equal access is key to simplifying relations between citizens and the PA. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the average weekly growth rate of digital identities distributed has doubled: from 50 to 100 thousand, exceeding the over 19 million SPIDs. In this sense, it will be essential to expand the number of digital public services and not to fragment the channels of digital access to public services.
The European Commission has adopted, over the last few years, several acts – including the Communication towards the gigabit society, the Action Plan for 5G and the Directive on the new Electronic Communications Code – all aimed at creating a fully inclusive digital society. . As I have already said, the “Digital Compass” sets ambitious goals on the issue of connectivity: a gigabit for all families and 5G coverage in all populated areas by 2030.
We too can set ourselves the same goal, to be achieved sooner, thanks to the PNRR.
As my colleague Minister of Economic Development Giancarlo Giorgetti recently recalled, there are several ways to face this infrastructural challenge.
We need to act on several fronts.
In fact, the action plan we are drafting intervenes both on the supply side and on the demand side. As for the offer, we aim to cover the entire territory with very high speed connections, without leaving anyone behind, with an agnostic approach aimed at giving access to all with all the technologies needed to do so: fiber at home, fixed wireless, 5G . To reach everyone including schools, hospitals, public offices and all 18 smaller islands by 2026.
As already mentioned, we are now working on the Plan for the identification and coverage of those “gray” areas where private investments in very high-speed networks will not be foreseen in the coming years. We will do the mapping and consultations quickly. As soon as it is ready, we will bring the Plan to the Interministerial Committee for the digital transition. It is a complex process that involves dialogue with the market and with national and community institutions. We want to speed it up as much as possible.
On the demand side, we await the approval, by the European Commission, of the measures relating to phase 2 of the cd. Vouchers to support access to the network of families and businesses. As soon as it is obtained, we will have around € 900 million available to businesses and citizens.
Still on the demand side: since November 2020, over 118,000 Vouchers have been activated throughout Italy for low-income families, for a total of over 59 million euros paid out. Five months after the start of the measure, the resources committed amounted to over 73 million euros, equal to approximately 37% of the available funds.
Finally, the measures to stimulate infrastructure and demand that I have briefly described must be accompanied by measures that make the construction of infrastructures quicker and easier, by adequate investment guarantees and certain times for the State, and by measures that stimulate the effective adoption of services by households and businesses.
We are therefore considering further simplification and revision measures of the regulatory framework to speed up procedures and improve implementation times and methods for network infrastructures, both fixed and mobile.
CLOUD COMPUTING
I move on to the second area of intervention to achieve the digital transition in Italy: the Cloud. Also in this case an intelligent use of this technology – little used in our PA – can not only make us recover lost ground, but reform the complex, and sometimes cumbersome, relationship between citizen and administration.
To achieve this we are working on several fronts. The first and foremost: the “cloud first” principle must be decisively adopted. If until now the cloud has been one of the many options for the Public Administration, tomorrow it will increasingly be the obligatory choice for the secure storage of data, for their processing and to offer digital services.
In fact, the cloud offers four main benefits for the PA:
1. It is safer. To date, 95% of public administrations keep data in inadequate structures to protect them. The cloud helps us strengthen our security. This is because, by reducing fragmentation, it helps to rest security on centralized structures which, in terms of scale and investment, are technologically more advanced, and therefore safer.
2. It costs less. Against the initial expense for data migration, companies and administrations moving to the cloud gain two benefits: first, they eliminate the costs of owning and maintaining hardware. In this way they also reduce the unexpected costs generated by inefficiencies. But above all, the costs to increase volumes and use more resources are marginal and do not require extra investments.
3. Finally, the cloud helps to improve the quality of the services provided. The scalability of the structure, for example, allows the company or public institution to sustain fluctuating workloads without getting into trouble at peak times. Finally, it enables the supply of services and applications "as a service" – that is, paid for use – for the public administration, which encourage their continuous updating, improve their technological quality and allow them to be reused by several administrations.
In addition to “cloud first”, we want to make sure that administrations are helped to migrate to different clouds depending on the different level of data sensitivity they have. This will involve first classifying the types of data into ultra-sensitive, sensitive and ordinary, to ensure choices that adequately protect citizens and administrations, as already done by many other countries.
– For the most sensitive data we intend to create a National Strategic Pole with public control, located on Italian soil and with high guarantees, including jurisdictional ones. The Strategic Pole will make it possible to rationalize and consolidate many of those centers that are currently unable to guarantee adequate safety standards. At the same time, the investment in state-of-the-art infrastructures will allow us to fully seize the opportunities of cloud computing and help PAs to make the delivery of services more efficient.
– Alongside the Strategic Pole, we must also provide for the possibility for administrations to take advantage of efficient public clouds, which are economic, flexible and constantly updated. But this only for less sensitive types of data and applications and with pre-defined security and protection characteristics required of suppliers.
Obviously it will also be possible to adopt a hybrid model between the two previous solutions.
– Furthermore, we want to accompany this purely domestic reasoning with a European-wide strategy, in order to work towards that technological and strategic autonomy that I have already highlighted. Here we are certainly thinking of a European partnership strategy. For example, in 2020 the French and German governments launched the GAIA-X program. The declared aim of this partnership is to attract investments in the data economy that moves numerous productive sectors in Europe by acting on interoperability standards and on the creation of data-spaces in different domains and industrial sectors. We think that Italy should also play an active role in this project. The efforts of the private sector, in particular industrial representative associations and research centers, are essential to this end. As a Ministry, we want to give all our institutional support to this project so that Italy and its business sector identify a new dimension of European industrial policy in the collaboration on data.
Before concluding this second part, let me say one last thing.
The 'cloudification' of the PA is not only a great investment for the state and for the relationship between state and citizens, but also for businesses and for innovation themselves. The transition to the cloud, if efficient and scalable, will allow the creation of a participatory ecosystem of companies and startups capable of improving the quality of applications and software in use by the PA, as is already the case in many other countries.
This is also where the concept of strategic autonomy passes: autonomy is not only the daughter of state investments. It also benefits from mixed public-private ecosystems that create the innovative driving force needed to develop vast digital markets to compete globally. We must not underestimate this dual European and public-private partnership. It has been the basis for the success of the great North American and Asian cloud reference models.
OPEN DATA AND DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP
We are in the third area of intervention: open and interoperable data. In these cases, the thought goes to the large international technology companies. In fact, the public sector is one of the largest data collectors and managers.
The benefits produced by the spread of open data are well known. The European Union quantifies its value at 325 billion euros, a value that is constantly increasing. Three positive effects – again according to the European Commission – are the creation of new jobs and considerable savings in public spending.
But the positive effects are above all for the lives of citizens. Interoperability between PA databases, which seems an obscure concept, can overturn the experience and the sometimes unjust narrative of a distant, inaccessible PA that complicates the life of citizens, businesses and workers because it is the element necessary to provide any digital service.
We want citizens to have a single digital identity and interact with the PA through a single digital "counter", through which they can consult their personal data, request and obtain permits, track them if they do not arrive in time, and pay for services.
To translate this image into reality, we plan to invest in a series of initiatives, some of which are already solid or well underway.
– First, we want the digital life of the citizen himself to be simplified. Here we are working to simplify, and make free, the digital home, or that digital address – chosen by the citizen – which will be used for interactions with the PA, if the citizen so chooses. Gradually, we intend to converge on a single platform for notifications between citizen and administration, which we will encourage every citizen to adopt, always leaving a physical channel option for those who cannot or will not want to be reached only by the digital channel. To date, more than 10 million citizens have already downloaded the IO app and can access the services or messages of the administrations directly from their mobile phone. We hope to be able to make new features available on the AppIO soon, also thanks to the issue of the Agid guidelines currently under the attention of the Privacy Guarantor.
– Second, we want to further simplify and strengthen the digital identity, starting with SPID and CIE but arriving at offering an increasingly simpler experience in accessing digital services, in line with the ambitious objectives of the European Digital Compass. Thanks to an appreciated dialogue with the Privacy Guarantor, in a few days we will start the process of approving the guidelines on the digital domicile of citizens prepared by Agid, a fundamental element to unlock the projects enabling the digital interaction between PA and citizens. Thanks to this domicile, and thanks to the simplified identity, the citizen will have a single point of access and dialogue with the PA.
– The third investment, that of full interoperability of data, is crucial in the process of simplifying citizens' lives. We want to ensure that, in a short time, public administrations communicate citizens' data with each other, safely and in the most automated forms possible. This step is the milestone on which the cd rests. “once only” principle: through interoperability it is possible to avoid asking people and companies for information that the PA already holds. Therefore, in this drawing, after the citizen obtains certified access to the “one-stop shop” with the digital identity, the administrations communicate the data to each other to fulfill the citizen's requests.
In this regard, we will work on the issue of Agid guidelines on interoperability and on the preparation of the National Digital Data Platform (PDND) to fully implement article 50-ter of the Digital Administration Code. Thanks to these interventions, we hope that, in a reasonable time, the PDND will enable the exchange of information between the main databases of national interest, in full respect of privacy, becoming the backbone of the interoperability of PA data,
– And, to close the circle, we want to further strengthen the already positive experience of PagoPA to allow us to conclude the digital path with simple, traceable and digital payments. PAgoPA is currently used by more than 28 million citizens and 1.2 million businesses.
A last, very important, advantage of open data and interoperability is for the public sector the possibility of transforming the public administration from reactive to proactive, that is, capable of quickly analyzing the evidence offered by the data and making better decisions because they are able to anticipate the critical issues.
SAFETY
Of course, we cannot imagine any transition in the absence of adequate cyber security conditions. In a digital world where an incredible and growing amount of data is available online, it is up to governments to defend this information from intrusions and cyber attacks. Cyber-security is the fourth intervention area of the digital transition.
Just a few days ago, big tech companies like Facebook and LinkedIn confirmed intrusions to their databases. Even more vulnerable and exposed to attacks are the databases owned by public administrations. The digital transition therefore requires a significant effort to strengthen national cyber-security, which protects people, infrastructures and data. We need more secure systems, adequate and rationally distributed skills.
We have already taken action on the coordination of information activities for the protection of the country's cyber space and on the definition of the national cyber security perimeter. We will now focus on three interventions: first, the update of the national cyber security strategy; second, the enhancement of the public's response capacity against cyber attacks; third, the strengthening of audit and evaluation capacities.
SKILLS
The fifth and last area of intervention concerns skills, that is, human capital. The skills we have to create, where they do not yet exist; we have a duty to encourage them, where they exist, but they are still lacking; and we are expected to develop them where they are not appropriate.
Let's look first at the creation of digital skills. It is up to the school system, of all levels and levels, and to the university system to create them and support their training throughout the course of study.
I obviously do not fall within the scope of the competences of my fellow White and Mass Ministers, who I know are committed to giving substance to significant interventions on this front. I will limit myself to focusing on a few points:
– The necessary strengthening of ITS within the educational and professionalizing system. I remember that the best ITS have very high employment rates, over 80%, and that in Italy ITS graduates are a fraction of their French and German counterparts.
– The boost to scientific disciplines in general, with particular emphasis on gender equality. We want to increase the number of girls and women with technical and scientific skills.
– The incentives for doctorates in general, and in particular industrial ones, to be linked more closely with the entrepreneurial system, to strengthen the link between the world of research and businesses which is at the basis of technological innovation.
It is also necessary to act on the demand for digital skills by businesses and public administrations, favoring and incentivising it.
The Transition Plan 4.0, for example, recently refinanced in the last budget law also thanks to the resources of the PNRR, will have to support companies to acquire new or more adequate digital skills, without which the same investments in high technology will not be able to fully activate.
In public administrations, Minister Brunetta is working to strengthen and introduce new digital skills. Therefore, initiatives such as the release of turnover, the hiring of technical and managerial skills in the PA and investments in staff training are doing well.
Alongside these measures, we are planning our direct contribution to the digital skills plan in the PA. Two points:
– Firstly, we will create digital transformation units that can accompany both central and local administrations in all the digital transformation processes I have already spoken about. Often, in fact, economic measures are not enough to face a digital transformation because this also and above all involves ways of organizing, collaborating and structuring processes. The territorial articulation will benefit those administrations that have more difficulty in implementing the necessary changes that the digital transition entails. The administrations will thus have all the necessary support – consultancy, instrumental and financial – to be accompanied in the change.
– Conversely, we plan to enhance AgID. The Agency is in fact responsible for ensuring the full realization of the objectives of the Digital Agenda.
CONCLUSIONS
I come to conclusions. We have a digital strategy that must help us seize the opportunities of the current crisis. He has three great unknowns ahead of him. That of delay, that of inclusion and that of skills.
We will remedy the first with infrastructural interventions. On the second, we will intervene by insisting on digitization as an enabling condition for citizenship. We will tackle the third unknown by creating and encouraging ideas and knowledge, in the medium term with investments of people and, in the short term, by supporting administrations in migration.
Digital technology is our chance to bring our country back among the European leaders. Through the application of the PNRR we have the opportunity to actively participate in the work of the 5 very important years ahead of us.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/sara-leonardo-il-perno-del-polo-nazionale-pubblico-del-cloud/ on Wed, 14 Apr 2021 08:01:28 +0000.