European Dimension of the Infovek Project

Integration in the European economic, political and security structures is inevitable for all candidate countries. Therefore Slovakia needs reasonable, concrete, and realistic strategy, dealing with its future position in integrated Europe and therefore a strategy of the preparation of Slovakia, which will soon become a full member of the European Union and will develop the principles of the modern knowledge economy of the 21st century, is a necessity.

There is no doubt that the information and communication technologies mean the same for the 21st century what the mechanisation meant for the industrial revolution. We suppose that Slovakia will become an EU member in the near future. Its success, not only in unified Europe but also world-wide will fully depend on how Slovakia will be prepared for putting itself across in the competitive environment of the information societies.

Development of the information society will positively influence the establishment and dynamic development of other branches of industry, derived from the use of computers and information. Only those who are able to get the information quickly and cheap and use it effectively, have undoubted advantages in comparison with the slower and less able participants in the market. Although this project wants to solve the problems of the future, even now it is already clear that the project will help to solve some of current problems, such as the problems in the healthcare sector, in organising the state administration, in financial sector, in education, etc.

Knowledge and information are the issues, which become a strategic raw materials and main factors of the development of the society in the post-industrial information society with the knowledge economy and replace the role, which used to be played by a combination of energy, raw materials, and industrial technology not a long time ago. Computers as such would undoubtedly change many processes in the industrial society but it is a connection of the computers with the telecommunication what turns the post-industrial society into information society. Nowadays, this connection is being symbolised and “embodied“ by the Internet. One of the most important aspects of this transformation is that the character of work, which will require the highly qualified workforce, able to work with the information, is being changed in a significant way

This tendency not only has a global, world-wide character but especially it will play a principal role in the development of the modern developed nations in the horizon of the next decades. There is no doubt that the European Union will make every effort in the near future to catch the relative lead of the United States and Japan in the transformation to the information society in order to improve its competitiveness. But even the process of widening and unifying of the European Union can not take place out of the framework of building the information society. The best proof of this development is the Schengen Agreement, the practical realisation of which would not be possible without the introduction of the central border search information system.

The new EU members will benefit from their EU membership only if they will be able to compete with other EU members in the framework of the union. The most advantageous positions will belong those countries with the best preparation for the future. This is obviously valid also for Slovakia as an official candidate for the EU membership.

Preparedness we are speaking about means the preparedness of our society for the information age. The young generation must now educate itself in order to have the best chances to make it on the European and even on the world-wide labour market of the information society of the 21st century. The Infovek Project would like to contribute to this development, in accordance with the eEurope+ initiative, through the building of the hardware infrastructure, development of the education curricula, preparation of teachers for the work at a modern school of the 3rd millennium as well as through influencing the development of the digital literacy of the regions.