Hong Kong Government's ESD + HP

In 1998, the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) launched an initiative to make the city the digital hub of Asia. Dubbed the Digital 21 IT Strategy, the effort began by building up Hong Kong's information infrastructure and encouraging the growth of the city's information technology industry.

Then, the SAR government set out to do what any enterprise seeking to become a player in e–business would do: build a Web portal. In Hong Kong's case, a portal that delivered online public services to its 6.8 million citizens around the clock – while saving money at the same time.

To build and maintain the Electronic Service Delivery (ESD) system, the Hong Kong SAR government selected a partnership that included HP. As a group, the joint venture boasted extensive experience in providing the technology, marketing and financial support such a project needed. HP, in particular, had the solutions that could deliver the extremely high system availability and security protection required.

Since the project began in 1999, HP has provided e–infrastructure, products, services and solutions to the joint venture, which runs on a muscular technical backbone. HP's contribution includes project management for the deployment of information kiosks around Hong Kong's public spaces. The kiosks not only increase convenience but make the portal available to citizens who don't have ready Internet access.

www.esd.gov.hk was launched in December 2000. Hong Kong's millions of citizens can now access more than 130 types of public services from more than 40 government departments. For example, a person can pay taxes, book a marriage date, apply for business permits or sign up for volunteer work. Real–time views of major traffic arteries can also be accessed, and sports and leisure facilities reserved – all through the Digital 21 porthole.

Within two years, from conception to reality, the joint venture in which HP is a technology provider has supplied the Hong Kong SAR Government with a highly available, scalable and manageable bilingual public – and commercial – services portal. Public services will never be delivered, and queues at government offices will never look the same again.