“We have decided to create a single cloud for the PA with Italian jurisdiction and with access to the best international technologies, because we all know that the best technologies are not Italian”. The Minister for Technological Innovation and Digital Transition Vittorio Colao is a guest for the first meeting of Italian.tech, the new technology hub of the GEDI group. In conversation with the director Riccardo Luna and with Maurizio Molinari, director of Repubblica, he explains that he has made contact with various Italian and international companies: “By the end of June we will begin the evaluation and in 2022 the structure will be operational”.
The important announcement, because today there are over 11,000 data centers used by the Public Administration, and not all of them are very safe. “The philosophy of PNRR is to have the government, individuals, and large international providers working together.”
The single Cloud is part of a great simplification process: “We hear every day saying that doing something is complicated, with the Simplification Decree we try to give certainty of timing, safe answers, but also interoperability of databases. In a word, simplification means making the country easier for businesses and citizens ”. But why is Italy so complicated? “For two reasons – explains Colao – first, a formalistic culture made up of ex ante rather than ex post controls. Better to give more money to the police and carabinieri to check who goes wrong than to slow everything down. This is the other problem: slowness ”. Slowness in decision-making processes, in justice, but also in the activity of the government, which by the admission of the minister himself is not in step with digital transformations.
However, a change of pace came recently, when the pandemic pushed Italians to use technology like never before: “11 million Italians have downloaded the IO app, over 20 million have Spid”, explains the minister. And even Immuni, seen by Colao, is not a flop: “It failed as a contact tracing app, but it brought Italians closer to digital”. It could be useful by enriching the Green Pass, which should also be visible by IO (“The interface of the world with the PA”, defines it Colao). But for the Green Pass it will not be necessary to download an application, just a QR code on your smartphone.
“And yet – notes Luna – for 15 years we have been talking about health records, online schools, other digital promises. What did we do wrong? ” “We live in a decentralized state, and there is nothing wrong with that. But we need a central authority that decides how the regions and institutions interact with each other ”. This would also make vaccinations on vacation easier, Molinari asks? “We are trying,” Colao replies. “We must preserve the control of the logistic flow, we cannot jeopardize the excellent work of Figliuolo, we must connect the various systems together”.
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