Digitalization Summit: Roadmap to the Digital Decade

Tursky: “Digitalization in Austria is strategically sound and geared towards the needs of citizens and businesses.”

At today’s Digitalization Summit hosted by the Austrian Federal Government at the “House of Digitalization” in Tulln, Austria’s roadmap for the EU’s “Digital Decade” was also presented. With the “Digital Decade” initiative, the European Union aims to accelerate digital transformation across Europe by 2030. The “Digital Decade” focuses on a digitally skilled population and highly qualified digital professionals, secure and sustainable digital infrastructures, the successful digital transformation of businesses, and the digitalization of public services.

The concept of Smart Government is central to digital public services. “Smart Government means that we design and manage administrative processes using intelligently networked information and communication technologies. Smart digital solutions are therefore the crucial step towards an administration where the data truly runs itself, rather than the users, businesses, or administrative staff. Smart Government also means that networking and analyzing existing data can yield concrete insights for future administrative and governmental action. This leads to greater efficiency, improved service quality, greater transparency, and proactive action. For me, that's digitalization with benefits,” said State Secretary Florian Tursky.

Smart Government Roadmap for Achieving EU Goals

“We are implementing the goals of the ‘Digital Decade’ in a strategically sound manner and are taking into account the needs of citizens and businesses in all areas,” explained State Secretary for Digitalization Florian Tursky regarding the roadmap presented today. This roadmap comprises a total of 16 target pathways and 66 measures. In the area of ​​eSkills, Austria aims to increase the proportion of people with basic digital skills to 70% by 2026 and to 100% by 2030. To this end, the “Digital Everywhere” workshop program will be rolled out as part of the Digital Skills Initiative. In the area of ​​semiconductors, Austria will invest almost three billion euros between 2024 and 2031 to trigger more than seven billion euros in further investments.

Austria is supporting the goal of increased use of cloud computing and big data, among other things, with the Gaia-X Hub AT. To promote the use of artificial intelligence in SMEs, an AI service center will be established in addition to the existing Digital Innovation Hubs. Austria aims to make essential public services for businesses 100% online by 2030 through the further development of its Business Service Portal. This will be supported by the "once only" principle and e-delivery. With ID Austria, Austria is already setting a European standard for access to secure digital identity verification: ID Austria is recognized throughout the EU and enables unrestricted control over identity transactions and digitally transmitted personal data.

Tursky: "A digitally strong Austria in Europe sustainably secures the future for our business location and our way of life. Austria's approach to digitalization shows how we can achieve more together through digitalization."

(C) Federal Ministry of Finance