The Information Society, in the context of its participation in the 85th TIF, held with great success the event entitled: #TransformingGReece: Greece is moving towards the new era with invited participants and high representatives, the “National Greece” of the Greek IT and Telecommunications market, as it was said at the event by the attendees.
The event was introduced by the Minister of Digital Governance, Mr. Kyriakos Pierrakakis, who, after pointing out the huge role of the Information Society (Mr. Asthenidis and his team) as the key executive arm of the Ministry in implementing the projects, described the Recovery Fund as a new “Marshall Plan” with €6 billion of digital reforms for IT and telecoms in the coming years. He stressed that the new financial possibilities, namely the existing and the new NSRF, national resources, but also new tools, such as PPPs, create a large financial source, “which enables us to implement not only what is necessary but also what is desirable”.
From his side, the CEO of the Information Society, Mr. Stavros Asthenidis announced an “avalanche of projects” by the end of the year with a total budget of €500 million. He specifically highlighted that: “First of all, I would like to thank the Minister for his kind words. I feel proud that after two years, when both the Prime Minister and the Minister have entrusted us with the management of the company, we have this project to present, which I think you all see. In these two years, the Information Society has concluded around 70 programme agreements worth 2 billion euros. It already has 50 contracted projects totalling €600 million and by the end of the year we plan to launch tenders for about 40 projects with a total budget of €500 million. I think so many projects have never been heard before in IT and telecommunications in such a short time. I am very happy that we have this team in the company, which is doing its best to achieve so quickly all that we have achieved and to move forward in this transition that the government and our Minister has set as a goal. I would like to thank all the distinguished guests of the market who responded to our invitation because they are our main partners. They are the ones who will be called upon to implement with us an avalanche of projects that are coming. The Information Society is about to implement projects from the Recovery Fund with a total budget of 2.5 billion. A package of projects that will be more than double the size of the company’s previous operational programme. So the challenge is for both us and you in the companies to mobilise all the resources that we will need to deliver all these projects on time and to the quality required. I see a sincere willingness to cooperate and I look forward to synergies. The 20-year-old Information Society has come of age and is here to support your efforts towards the common goal of project implementation. We are on the same side to make #TransformingGReece a reality.”
The Director Director of Public Projects of the Information Society, Mr. Dimitris Giantsis highlighted that: First of all, I would like to also thank, after the Minister and Mr. Asthenidi, all the selective partners we have worked with, are working with and will continue to work with in the future. We all know that we are faced with the pleasant problem of the private market not catching up with the projects tendered by the public sector with the Information Society as the main executive arm of the Ministry. Indicatively to what Mr.Asthenidis mentioned, I would like to add that in these two years we have so far tendered 70 projects worth over €750 million and for the Recovery Fund projects we have committed to submit the technical sheets within this year in order to secure their financing. The Information Society has understood the key role it will play in this whole piece of digital transformation and we have increased our staff by 70% in the last two years to meet these challenges. The market has to be vigilant. We all need to have an open channel of communication so that not a day is lost.”
In their statements, the high level representatives of the Telecommunications and IT market pointed out their willingness to cooperate and their satisfaction with the opportunities and challenges presented by this wide range of digital transformation projects in the Public Administration. The event was attended either physically or online by: Giota Paparidou (President of SEA), Elvina Svirou (Commercial Director of Major Commercial Client at Vodafone Business), Giannis Mertzanis (CEO of Space Hellas), Alexandros Manos (CEO of Intrasoft International), Alexandros Mpregiannis (Public Sector Business Development Director(ICT) of Wind), Giannis Loumakis (President and CEO of Uni Systems), Antonis Tsimpoukis (General Directors of CISCO), Giannis Konstantinidis (Chief Officer of Strategy, Transformation & Providers of OTE Group), Antonis Oikonomou ((Head of Government Organizations of Microsoft) and Panos Xenakis (Director of Public Sector Projects of Byte).
The discussion was moderated by the President and Director General of RES-MPA, journalist Mr. Aimilios Perdikaris, who also announced the digital transformation of RES-MPE through the programmatic agreement signed with the Information Society, which will soon begin to be implemented.
