How ICT strengthens trust between the public and private sectors
Inaugural lecture by Yao-Hua Tan
He has been associated with the TPM faculty as a full professor for almost two years now, but it was not until late April that he found the time to deliver his inaugural address. Yao-H ua Tan, head of the Information and Communication Technology section, used it to set out the outlines of his research. He elaborates on these for the Quarterly. The heart of his message is that ICT innovation requires more diplomacy than programming.
Within five years, the Netherlands must have a sound ICT infrastructure for e-government, for a government that works efficiently, using electronic services. “TPM experts are excellently placed to help build that infrastructure,” says Yao-Hua Tan. “I focus on e-government for international trade, and my colleague Marijn Janssen carries out research into what is needed to better serve citizens. Ultimately there should be one infrastructure for both - and for that, you need one part technology to four parts diplomacy.”
Closing borders
Take the export of a container from the port of Rotterdam, for example. Ever-stricter border controls - resulting from anti-terror measures but also from concerns about food safety - mean a great deal of paperwork for a single container. The average is twenty documents. Physical inspections of goods hold up trade flows even more. The government can tighten the borders more and more, thereby weakening the Netherlands’ position as a trading nation - or it can put greater trust in the self-regulating abilities of exporting companies, which would require less supervision. Tan: “There has to be a basis to this kind of trust: what I refer to as responsible trust. And this is where ICT comes in. If companies can show that their own control systems are in order, if they structure them so that they cannot be manipulated, then there is a basis for trust.”
The point is that the companies themselves know how best to design these systems. If there is something wrong with a carton of yoghurt in the supermarket, then the dairy producer will be able to establish where the rest of the batch is in a matter of hours. The government can also reap the benefits of this information. Tan explains, “What makes it difficult is that the safety issues that affect a globally operating scrap metal dealer are different to those that affect an exporter of dairy produce. With scrap metal the major safety concern is the possibility of hidden bombs, whilst dairy producers are more concerned with food safety. The companies involved therefore have different tracing systems and different notions of safety. The government has to set safety requirements, but should translate them to individual industries and companies. Systems can then be devised accordingly. The deployment of the technology is easier than the process of negotiation that precedes it.”
Bananas
This new system-based monitoring of exports has not really taken off yet. Companies have to obtain an AEO certificate for it, and far fewer are doing so than expected. Tan knows the reason why: “Companies have to make huge investments for this, sometimes tens of millions of euros. There is no point in doing so if such systems can only be used for Customs purposes. I think that ICT could also be used for sustainable trade, which would make investing a more attractive proposition. When a container with fruit arrives in the port of Rotterdam, the contents are transported on in lorries, which emit large amounts of CO2 and cause a great deal of congestion on the roads. Bananas, however, could easily be transported via inland shipping instead, which is cleaner and less costly. This is because they are picked when green and ripen during transport. This does mean that your company’s system must be able to tell you which are the containers with the bananas in them, and which ones contain the grapes. As a company, you would help reduce CO2 emissions.” By extension, there is an added function which the expensive company control system can perform: that of fair-trade certification. Businesses are given this certificate if they are able to show, say, the exact route taken by coffee beans after they leave the small cooperatives in Brazil. Tan says, “By applying the requisite ICT we should be able to make a real difference in three areas: Customs, reducing CO2 emissions and fair-trade certification. These are topics that matter in the boardroom. Corporate social responsibility is a strong motivational force for businesses.”
Future
Much research is needed to design systems in such a way that they can be deployed in different areas. The research involves various disciplines. At TPM, Tan switches easily between the Philosophy section of Jeroen van den Hoven and the Economics of Infrastructures section of John Groenewegen. It is precisely this way of working that enticed him to move from Amsterdam to Delft two years ago. “I am convinced that all of TU Delft will be organised along socio-technical lines in ten years’ time. Working solely on the basis of technology is no longer possible - the future lies in the multidisciplinary approach.”
Read here the TPM-Quarterly, Year IX, nr. 2
