Update April 2000: Hungary

1. Review

1.1 Public, government and official organisations, programs

• In February a study titled "With government backing on the information superhighway" was published on the website of the Prime Ministerial Office (www.kancellaria.gov.hu/tevekenyseg/hirlap/2000feb6/index.html), which details the main trends and challenges of the information age and the possible solutions to these, and outlines the steps the government has taken and will further on take in this field.

• HBONE, a special network for the Hungarian higher education, research, public collection sector and the government information providers operates in the framework of the National Information Infrastructure Development Program. From December 1999, the connection between the regional centres and the HBONE core in Budapest has increased to 34 and 155 Mbps.

1.2 Professional organisations

• Hungarian Internet Society Association (Magyar Internet Társaság Egyesület - MITE - www.isoc-hu.hu is an association founded in June 1997. It is member of ISOC (Internet Society). Its aims laid down in its memorandum of association are:
  • To provide an organisational framework for the propagation of the Internet culture, and to establish and operate such forums that support the network development of the Internet in Hungary through composing and widely publicising declarations and statements among others in order to promote the development of the network infrastructure, introduce a wide variety of services and support the increasing type and number of applications.
  • The association intends to create a proper forum principally for the players of the higher and public education, research and development, government and economic sectors and for all individuals interested to discuss the operation of the Hungarian Internet network and to co-ordinate their interests.

   

• On 25^th February, 2000, at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA), in terms of the motto "2000, the year of the Internet in Hungary", 20 Hungarian information technology and telecommunications organisations signed a collaboration agreement for speeding up the pace of the building of the information society and for the spreading of the Internet culture. Within the framework of the harmonised, joint actions, the arrangement of cultural, scientific and business programmes in connection with the promotion of the application of the Internet and the wide spreading of the Internet culture is of key importance. The signers of the agreement will act as initiators in the harmonisation of government duties, and will organise joint programmes that can presumably expect to find high response from the society. The patron of the initiative is academician Norbert Kroó, secretary-general of MTA; its initiators are the Informatics Arbitration Forum, the Hungarian Internet Society and the John von Neumann Computer Society. Further participators in the co-operation are: AmCham, Szabó Ervin Library of Budapest, Scientific Association for Infocommunications, HUNGARNET Association, HUNINET Association, Internet Galaxis - Options Ltd., Council of Hungarian Internet Providers, MABISZ IT Department, Hungarian Internet Society, Hungarian Cable Communications Association, Hungarian Telecottage Association, MTA Information Science Committee, MTA Computer Science Committee, Federation of Technical and Scientific Societies, National Agricultural Library, Telecommunications Arbitration Forum.

1.3. Education

• According to data of 31 December 1999, there are 121 accredited ECDL (European Computer Driving Licence - Európai Számítógép-használói Jogosítvány) examination centres in Hungary with a uniform national distribution (except for Budapest where 37% of the centres can be found). The network extends to all the counties: the proportion of examination centres is 1% in Nógrád County, 2% in Bács and Szolnok each, while in the rest of the counties an average of 3-4% of the total number of examination centres operates. The regional distribution of the 14757 registered students: the leader Budapest (36%, that is 5248 students) is followed by Northern Transdanubia with 20% (2882 students), Southern Transdanubia with 15% (2216), the Great Hungarian Plain with 13% (1934), then Northern Hungary with 11% (1636), and finally by Pest County with 5% having 794 registered students. ECDL was accredited by the Ministry of Education, and in this way it was declared to be one of the compulsorily facultative courses in the inland teacher extension-training program from 2000. Besides statistical data, the strengthening of ECDL is also justified by the fact that the Ministry of Education is now considering the possibility of replacing the "computer user" qualification, as included in the National Training Register, with the ECDL certificate. The assessment of how the ECDL syllabus should be officially incorporated into the computing curriculum of secondary schools is concurrently underway. The latter one de facto still exists though, since several schools are operating as ECDL examination centres where practically students can acquire an international certificate with the help of the knowledge they have acquired in the lessons. It is also frequent to see teachers of a "non-examination-centre-school" preparing their students and going organically to sit an exam into an accredited centre. (See: www.ecdl.iif.hu)

• The Philosophy Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) has launched an academic-philosophical Open University on the Internet on 15^th February (www.phil-inst.hu/projects/szabad.egy/szabad.htm). The application is unbound to any institutional participation, its single condition is registration which in return provides the students with a password that entitles them to download protected curriculum, have personal or e-mail consultation and take exams. The initiative of the Philosophy Institute, which is in accordance with the intentions of the MTA leadership, and which will presumably be joined by several other academic research institutes, is creating an enormous amount of high standard material on the web suitable for a higher-grade self-instruction. The Open University goes far to rely on the preparatory virtual university/open university work of the Uniworld Public Utility Association (www.uniworld.hu). Lines of studies: history of philosophy, social philosophy, science philosophy, religion philosophy and communication philosophy.

• The multicentre network is being further expanded this year as computer centres equipped with different educational software supporting kindergarten, primary and secondary education and language learning appear. In the first base established one and a half-year ago in Székesfehérvár, 400 children are studying every day. 60% of municipal schools in the town uses the opportunities provided by the multicentre. Following the favourable experiences in Eger, Budapest and Paks, very soon an educational computer centre, a multicentre will be established in the 13^th district of Budapest, Kecskemét and Nyíregyháza. The maintenance of the establishments is supported By MTESZ and the local governments.

• The Northern Hungarian Power Supply Company Ltd. (ÉMÁSZ) gifted 15 computers altogether to educational institutions and hospitals in its operation area until the end of February. During the standardisation of ÉMÁSZ’s computer park, plenty of still up-to-date Pentium-quality machines became freed. The directorate decided to offer these machines to some of the region’s schools and other institutions not abounding with financial resources for educational purposes and to facilitate their daily economic work. Employees of the Reményi Street daytime home nursery school in Miskolc took over the first on 23rd February. The machine is going to be used to keep and process the records of the daily procurement and economic tasks. In the following days, the Children's Town in Miskolc got five, the Petofi Sándor Secondary Boarding-School two and the Zrínyi Ilona Secondary Grammar School three fully equipped computers. The Árvay József Primary Training-School in Sárospatak, the day-time home nursery school in Kenézlo and the Markhot Ferenc Hospital and Ambulatory Clinic in Eger were then given two, one and one computers respectively. The company is going to offer PCs becoming freed in the future as a free gift to the region’s most indigent institutions.

1.4 Press

From 4 March, the daily newspaper Népszava has launched a 12-week, 12-round Internet game under the title "Egerészo" (Mouse-catcher), principally for students, in which real and virtual teams can participate. The teams have to complete the same task in each round. During the first 11 weeks, the aim is to qualify for the next round; the participators will only get a task that is set up to arrange them in an order in the last, twelfth round. Among teams who successfully complete the tasks of game weeks 1-11, valuable prizes will be drawn each week up to the total value of 3 million forints. The biggest prize for the winner of the 12^th round will amount to 1 million forints. The most successful virtual team in the series will be awarded a 600.000-forint special prize.

1.5 Other

• The first Hungarian Web competition (www.verseny.hu) organised by Cisco Systems Hungary, RTL Klub and Népszabadság for sites made in Hungarian language came to an end in December 1999. Near to 500 websites entered for the competition in the four categories: work, life, learning and game. The main prize was awarded to http://hazipatika.com.

• NetStageOne, the world’s first Internet theatre (www.netstageone.com) appeared at New Year’s Eve 1999 performing a cyber revue titled 2000 Digital, which is closely related to the millennium as far as its subject theme is concerned. The theatre plans to operate as a repertoire and receptive theatre by presenting classic and contemporary plays adapted to the new medium of the Internet performed by the actors of their own theatrical company and other guest artists. Some of their plays are produced in an interactive manner allowing the audience to actively participate in the creation of the final shape of the performances tailored to their special interests. All shows performed will be placed later in an archive accessible to the audience anytime, from anywhere.

• Microsoft Hungary exhibited the Windows 2000 operating system in a mobile educational cabinet implemented in a truck. The "instructive cabinet" set off on 29 January with the aim of interactively presenting the Microsoft Windows 2000 OS to rural retailers and the general public. For the door-to-door delivery of the performances, Microsoft and its partners created a specially built truck. The mobile computer science laboratory that was equipped with 20 workstations and two servers visited all the county towns of the country. The trip came to an end in Hosök tere (Heroes’ square) on 17 February, the day when Windows 2000 was put to trade, where the Windows 2000 truck could be seen for another week.

• Inter-Europa Bank (www.ieb.hu) designed an offer for their customers that is unique in the Hungarian financial market: in co-operation with Internet Service Provider EuroWeb Rt.., it provides a free 10-hour monthly Internet access for all its Inter-Europa bank card owners in Budapest until 31 December. The service aims to promote Internet Banking use and facilitate the elimination of factors that curb Internet use.

2. Conferences, fairs

• With over two hundred participators, the forum of the economic weekly Figyelo on encryption and data protection techniques used in electronic business was held on 16^th February in Budapest with the support of Business Online, Montana and Sun.

• The ECDL Conference organised in Pilisborosjeno on 16-17 February 2000, in which the chairman and head manager of the international ECDL Foundation also took part besides the representatives of the ministries, was about the inland and international position of ECDL, the official government and ministerial viewpoint, the foregoing achievements and plans, and the dialogue between those concerned.

• The Net Economy Workshop (NEW) intended to establish its Central European League after its Northern and Southern European Leagues. Budapest was the first to join this round. Prím Information Technology Company Ltd. undertook the role of the main supporter of NEW for the year 2000, and was joined by other well-known information technology, telecommunications, media and Internet companies. The Budapest Internet Workshop, the first program of Prím-NEW, was held on 21^st February with the participation of the invited 250 higher-level decision makers with the aim to further expand towards Prague, Warsaw, Ljubljana and Zagreb from September this year.

• The Electronic Commerce Forum public utility company organised a half a day’s professional seminar called "The first Hungarian XML Forum" on XML (Extended Markup Language) suitable for structured data transfer. The program including seven lectures and debates attracted 130 participators. Today there are some 14-16 firms in Hungary who use XML and write XML based applications, but their number is continuously increasing. The Electronic Commerce Forum public utility company launched a professional seminar series with "The first Hungarian XML Forum" as its first stage (another two programs will be held on 21 March, titled "Trust and safety in electronic commerce", and on 14-15 June on the similar topic titled "National conference on electronic commerce").

• The Hungarian Scientific Dietetics Association’s Quality Inspection Club (MÉTE) arranged a scientific conference and chamber exhibition in Budapest on 1 and 2 March called "Computer science in testing materials".

• The Prime Ministerial Office (MeH) organised a conference in Budapest on 2 March called "Challenges of the information age for the government" for leaders and information scientists of public and administration institutions and suppliers. After the opening speech of István Stump chancellery minister, David Cooke, director of the British cabinet office’s top information technology organisation (CITU IT) gave a lecture. Judit Szemkeo, permanent under-secretary of the Ministry of Education gave an account of their information technology related work done within the ministry and educational institutions during the previous one and a half year. Miklós Havas, chairman of Számalk Rt.., leader of the expert group who responded to the study known as e-Europe including 10 EU directives, compared the two studies on e-society. István Tétényi, major department leader of Sztaki, chairman of NIIF’s technical council dealt with the challenges of the development of the information technology infrastructure. In the closing speech Zsolt Sikolya (MeH) talked about the publicity of administration information in the European Union and Hungary.

• Barnabás Takács, research and development director of Digital Elite Entertainment held a lecture in English language on the commercial, legal, social, moral and political aspects of digital cloning at the Central European University (CEU) on 3 March.

• This year is the first occasion the Internet Fiesta is organically arranged in Hungary, between 17 and 19 March, simultaneously with the world-wide event running under the same title. The aim of the Internet Fiesta is to increase the awareness of the importance of the Internet, disseminate information about the Internet, and popularise the Internet. The initiative stems from the European branches of the Internet Society in 1999, and it is also supported by the European Union.