Finland's information society development is proceeding very well. The World Economic Forum has ranked countries that are the most competitive in the world. Finland was No 2 on the list. And Accenture, has ranked countries in the world which are the most developed eGovernment providers in the world. In the survey done 2005 we were ranked No. 3. But in a new survey in the spring 2006, we were ranked to be clearly one of the reformed leaders in the economic sector of the world. The active work related to information society strategy building and the Information Society Program can be recognized as the strenghts of Finland. One of the reasons why we are doing so well in these comparisons on the international level are Finland's R&D investments. Only two countries are ahead of us with respect to R&D investments: Israel and Sweden.

In 2003 we only had some 300.000 broadband connections in our country (there are 2,4 million households in Finland) and most of our country was not connected to the speedy networks of the information society. Now we have about 1,4 million houshold broadband connections which means that lot more than 50% of the housholds are connected. And every library in Finland is providing free of charge internet terminals to their customers. Finns are very enthusiastic to use those networks and connections. About 80% of Finns nowdays use them frequently - a remarkable figure in the international comparisons, the EU average of the internet usage is 47%. In our opinion the sustainable development of the information society means also inclusive information society. So we still have to do a lot of work to get all the age groups involved in this process.

R&D funding was mentioned as one success factor - but there are others like trust. Finns trust the public sector and the companies, and therefore they trust the e-services providers, organisations or sectors. 90% of Finns consider e-banking to be safe.

Nevertheless there are a lot of challenges ahead like aging population (Finland is one of the first nations to face the aging population), boosting up the productivity in the public sector. Our municipality sector is now employing about 450 000 people. And by the end of this decade about a third, meaning 150 000 people, will retire. That's one of the things that are pushing the government forward to build the information society. How can we maintain the sustainable welfare system in the future, if all the workers are retiring? That's why we need the ICT. The information society issues have geen given high importance by the government. In 2003 four policy programs were launched, which are the key policy areas for the government. And those four policy programs are employment issues, civil participation issues, and enterpreneurship issues, and the fourth one is the information society issue.

The Infomation Society Programme works directly under the Prime Minister who is leading a group which meets every month to discuss issues relating to the Information Society Program like meaning funding, steering projects and launching new projects. Our work is also supported by the Information Society Council, which is a body consisting of people from companies, the third sector etc. In the Information Society Programme there have been about 140 different funded measures. The ministry has implemented the broadband strategy, because we should have reasonably priced broadband connections all around Finland. We centralised our IT functions in the government, and also the municipalities have formed a new cooperation unit under the ministry of internal affairs. We have information society campaigns in our program, on TV and in libraries for instance and we have trained library staff in Finland. We are forming a national electronic base or data archive. It means better inormation for citizens, better information for doctors and helps saving costs as part of the welfare state policy.

On 26th September 2006 the National Knowledge Society Strategy has been published. It gives us a vision, but it also gives us concrete things that we should do in our next governments term of office. We want to create a nationwide vision for the companies, for the public sector and for the third sector, how the information society should develop in the future. And we define the sectors for the information society development where we want to push development forward. Finland is a small nation in the world, so we can't develop all things by ourselves. Therefore we have to decide on priority sectors.

We have a good, free of charge educational system in Finland, we have a positive ICT culture, and we have an open and safe society. But we have still some weaknesses: IPR questions have to be discussed and we still have some "silo thinking" in our society and in the public sector.

Finland will be a service society in the future by the means of the information society. Therefore we have also to develop our innovation system and improve marketing skills and the commercialisation of innovations. We also need to develop life-long learning. Trust in information society, compatible ICT functions, and the information society infrastructures are the foundations for our society as well as a balanced social and regional information society development.

Symposium "Information Technology, Competitiveness and the Environment" in Helsinki, November 20, 2006
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