The 23rd year of the YMS conference was again very successful
The 23rd year of the traditional professional and social conference YMS, GeoSpatial Visions, dedicated to successful electronizations, was held at the end of September in VyhnE. The program was focused on selected phases of digitalization from testing, through integrations to the transition to the cloud, and on an inspiring comparison of the survey of social values of Singapore and Slovakia.
Says Marek Ivanák, YMS project manager:
“Conference participants have long appreciated the interesting and inspiring professional program full of information, practical advice, ideas and examples of real experience with the implementation and operation of IT projects. They also praise a pleasant, open atmosphere with a wide opportunity to share experiences with each other, all in a representative environment.”
This year, the conference was attended by clients and partners of YMS from the state administration and higher territorial units, as well as from key industries. Foresters, agriculture managers, water managers, veterinarians, accreditation service, representatives of Slovak railways, gas and oil transportation networks and others.
values of Slovakia and Singapore
The program was started by the transformational coach Andrea Vadkerti. She presented the results of a survey of national values in Singapore and Slovakia. She compared the attitudes of Singaporeans and Slovaks in relation to their country and its development, including digitization.
Sais Andrea Vadkerti:
„Singapore will be 60 years old next year and it is the second most developed country in the world. A land originally of Malayan tigers and swamps. But they were smart, they were brave, very tenacious, hardworking and they managed to build their country in 60 years.“
In the survey of the nation’s values, both countries fared very similarly:
„While the most important personal values of people in both countries are family, health and friendship, the view of the country’s values as a whole looks worse. Slovaks identified corruption, uncertainty about the future and bureaucracy as the top 3 social value problems. Even Singaporeans, despite their success, look at shared values critically, as they identified fear of failure, complaining, competition as the top three national values.“
„We tend to multiply and exaggerate the bad, or that with which we are dissatisfied, which then circulates constantly in our system. We need to tune in and connect, talk and move things forward from below.“
Practice in different phases of digitization, practical demonstrations
The director of the IT department of the Central Inspection and Testing Institute of Agriculture, Marek Molnár, shared his practical experiences from the entire long-term process of electronicization, from initial planning to the actual implementation of the change across the entire organization. He recommended cooperation with experts throughout the process and warned that if the process is not managed, the risks are high.
Sais Marek Molnár:
„In the end, it is a change not only of technology, but of the entire company culture, because digitization brings fundamental changes in how the entire organization works.“
Radovan Hilbert, YMS business development director, spoke on the topic of digitization when it comes to map data:
„We live in an information overload, and in every industry, quality data is freely available in various formats. But how to understand them and start using them? The right technology and an appropriate form of visualization are half the way. More and more organizations are realizing this and are starting to use visualization platforms as part of other, so far mainly spreadsheet systems. That is why we developed a special map plugin, a daughter solution of our robust GIS system ySpatial, which we integrate basically anywhere. We insert a separate window into any application and achieve an immediate clear visualization of the data on the map.“
Michal Korauš, director of the IT department of the State Veterinary and Food Administration of the Slovak Republic, together with Slavomír Sipina, YMS business analyst, presented the new ŠVPS system and specifically focused on the testing phase, which is crucial for such a huge system. They explained the testing processes to the participants and pointed out the challenges they faced in the project.
Sais Michal Korauš:
„The KVEPIS IT solution, tailor-made for ŠVPS, was complex and required constant close and systematic cooperation of the supplier’s team with key users. Both in the initial analytical phase and in the acceptance testing phase.“
Sais Slavomír Sipina:
„We have created more than a thousand test scenarios in 11 modules and auxiliary registers. We tested data in codebooks, registers and user roles. Due to the overall complexity and close cooperation of the modules, we had to phase the testing so that work on one module did not cause incorrect behavior in the tested module. The YMS team worked in continuous creativity in order to take into account operational changes during development and to make the work of end users as easy as possible with the resulting processes.“
The topic of integration was dealt with by the project manager of YMS, Marek Ivaňák. He explained it to the participants on the integration profile of the yAgenda solution, which can be connected to all external systems in public administration.
Sais Marek Ivaňák:
„Each public administration system must be connected to dozens of other systems and registers so that data can be shared effectively. yAgenda from YMS contains a built-in ESB, integrates with ÚPVS modules, file service, CSRÚ, visual and non-visual KN services, electronic signing of documents. Automatically publishes contracts in CRZ.gov.sk, supports standard REST and SOAP API interfaces, provides built-in ETL processes for data exchanges, uses and publishes map services in OGC standards, publishes OpenData.“
The program of practical presentations was concluded by the head of the informatics department of the State Geological Institute, Dionýza Štúr, Štefan Káčer, and the YMS project manager, Tomáš Piovarči. They were dedicated to moving the contents of the Slovak geological library to the government cloud.
Sais Štefan Káčer:
„Do you want to save your systems and data even during the “consolidation” of public finances? Move them to the government cloud.”
Štefan Káčer continues:
„In the digital archive located on the servers of ŠGÚDŠ, we felt security, capacity and personnel limits, we had no financial means to buy new infrastructure associated with the transfer of a huge amount of data. Therefore, the Challenge associated with the migration of public administration IS to the cloud, paid for with European money, was a unique alternative for us.“
Panel discussion
In the afternoon, the conference continued with a traditional panel discussion, which was opened by Milan Ištván, president of the civil association Partnerships for Prosperity. The current status and risks of using the Slovakia Program and the Recovery and Resilience Plan, as well as new demand calls for project and research funding from EU sources, were reviewed. As usual, the topic sparked a lively discussion.
Sais Milan Ištván:
„The coming years are a great opportunity for Slovakia in the area of digitization, as we have the opportunity to use several European programs. The current priority is mainly the Recovery and Resilience Plan, but the projects of the Slovakia Program are already underway. The biggest priorities are certainly life situations and the digital transformation of public administration, cyber security and digitization of education. Calls for research and development are also gradually published.“
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Conference for clients and partners has been organized by YMS for 23 years, YMS started to organise nation-wide conferences as the first IT company in Slovakia.
