Forum Italia

Forum Italia is an initiative by Repubblica Digitale, a national multi-stakeholder initiative promoted by the Department for Digital Transformation of the Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers, that aims to foster digital skills at all levels of the Italian economy and society. Forum Italia constitutes a space for discussion of ideas, approaches and initiatives covering a wide range of topics related to digital skills and services in Italy. In 2020, the focus on digital public services was added to the Forum, as part of the actions taken by the Italian government to increase the amount and availability of online services.

About Forum Italia

This new space, which brings together a wide variety of stakeholders from the public sector and industry, active in the digital sphere, aims at improving overall knowledge about what digital public services should look like, and how these should be organized. Various posts are promoted by the Italian National Coalition for Skills and Jobs and they include proposals to enhance digitalization of the public administration.

Additionally, this new section intends to forge new collaborations and share opportunities for synergies between the coalition’s members. Forum Italia’s channel brings together more than 13,000 subscribers, offering an opportunity for organization-to-organization collaboration, networking and knowledge-sharing. Discussion topics and posts on the Forum range from the discussion of public documents and services, to specific conversations on technical issues related to the platform, or an area dedicated to open data.

Why is this a good practice?

Despite the short period since it was launched, the initiative has already showcased a considerable impact: it has initiated several discussions and external collaborators’ feedback has been overtly positive. In addition, the Coalition has provided a variety of inputs and consultations with the aim of gathering participants’ views on key topics related to digitalization, such as the availability of blockchain initiatives on a national level, assessment of the digital agenda, and others.

The initiative is also sustainable: since its start in 2020, it has been active in enhancing the engagement of participants and overall ecosystem and offers a stable and easy-to-use digital environment, in line with accessibility standards. The new space for discussions related to digital public services is part of the implementation of the national objective of increasing the availability of government services digitally (as noted in the Italian innovation strategy ‘Italia 2025’). Forum Italia has been active on a wide array of topics (allocated in different channels), e.g., cybersecurity, open data, as well as public consultations on technology-related issues, contributing to the organisation’s outreach and broad impact.