Germany, synonymous with success in job digitization
This phenomenon, caused by the coronavirus pandemic, has brought good results, according to Chancellor Angela Merkel
The digitalization of work caused by the coronavirus pandemic worked better than expected in Germany, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“We continue to have major weaknesses in the expansion of hardware, but at least we have managed so many Zoom and Webex conferences and other conferences that we would not have thought our network could support,” Merkel said on the sidelines of the 15th government Digital Summit.
The chancellor added that in recent months speed has been gained in some points, for example, such as the digitization of schools.
According to Merkel, the pandemic showed that many digital processes still have to advance. However, he was against driving digitization with large-scale projects, noting that the past has shown that an agile and incremental approach makes more sense.
The German Minister for the Economy, Peter Altmaier, invited the presidents of the main digital platforms to participate in the summit “Outlook: Digital Economy 2030”.
Altmaier will not be able to fulfill its promise to fully digitize administrations by 2021. “We all know that we will not have digitized all administrations by the end of this year,” criticized Achim Berg, president of the Bitkom digital sector business association.
It was debated whether the cause is lack of ambition, federalism, unwillingness to take risks or fragmentation of responsibilities. According to Berg, the existence of “many responsibilities” slows down the process.
Merkel stressed that the problem is usually due to the different computer systems of the federal states and municipalities. As he said, the federal government is often accused of “centralizing mania.” “That is where the states and municipalities also have to participate and not accuse the federal government that we interfere in everything,” he said.
The summit also covered artificial intelligence (AI), which Altmaier says will be a key element in the future. However, German citizens tend to look at new technologies with too much concern. “We have to deal with the fact that many innovations are viewed here with a lot of skepticism, that we put risks in the foreground,” Altmaier said.
K. Tovar
Source: dpa
