“Awards from Business for the Public Sector”. With these words the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was awarded a finalists’ prize at the SMAU for the ICT Innovation – Lazio 2014 competition. Marco Campo, head of Office IV at the Directorate General for ICT, received the prize for the S.P.E.S. project on behalf of the Ministry.
A coordination platform
The MFA launched the S.P.E.S. project in December 2012-January 2013. The project envisages a platform to create a Social Public Enterprise System within the Ministry’s regulatory and legal framework to enable integrated connections at the local and international levels. At present a Social Public Enterprise is being designed for each of the departmental units. The new solution, which will then be extended at the international level, will improve communications between the Farnesina and its missions abroad.
Implementation
The project entails the implementation of a cloud computing communications service that can connect people at any time, wherever they are, through functions that enable collaboration. From instant messaging, to audio and video calls, to online meetings and web conferencing. Using the current software, the Ministry can manage document flows in full compliance with the regulations governing data traceability, inviolability, and inalterability since MFA data is often used for evidentiary purposes.
Audio-visual format
The MFA will also use the new system for virtual communications in audio-visual format, in addition to the current text format, and will soon be able to transpose these communications to email documents for the immediate creation of administrative IT records.