ALICANTE, 26 Apr. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The virtual assistant of the artificial intelligence layer of the Alicante City Council, ALI, has received international recognition from the OECD Public Sector Innovation Observatory (OPSI), by being selected to be part of its database of ‘cases of relevant uses of the European Union’, and as an initiative that countries can adopt to promote the use of innovation in public procurement.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is an entity that analyzes innovation projects around the world, and offers a global forum through which it promotes good practices within the public sector. In this way, it encourages the exchange of knowledge and experiences between countries and organizations to provide support, guidance in innovation and improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness of public services, the council reports in a statement.
As a consequence of this recognition, the Councilor for Innovation, IT and Digital Agenda, Antonio Peral, expresses his satisfaction and gratitude, highlighting that “it is an international recognition of excellence and innovation in the field of the public sector, for the work carried out by the City Council. of Alicante, to our technological model as a smart city and to the Smart City strategic plan”.
“The OECD is a very prestigious organization and we are very proud that it includes our AI, at a global level, in this important forum and database as an example of good practice in innovation,” Peral stressed.
Alicante City Council was the first public administration to incorporate artificial intelligence on its municipal website ‘ali.alicante.es’ at the beginning of 2024, and launch a virtual assistant called ALI, which was implemented with the aim of reducing the gap digital and bring the administration closer to the citizen, facilitating their procedures. In this way, ALI, whose project has been financed by European Next Generation Funds, already resolves 210 queries a day online.
Councilor Antonio Peral highlights that “there are very few Spanish projects that have been selected by the OECD to be part of the database where the best practices of public administration worldwide are recorded, which is why it becomes more relevant and becomes value the innovation work carried out in Alicante with ALI”.
Likewise, the mayor points out that this recognition “will connect us, and increase the visibility of municipal AI in other countries.” “In this way, our virtual assistant can be implemented and shared in more public administrations, as it is developed with open source and in the cloud,” says Peral.
Alicante is “the spearhead” with its innovation model, and is “one step ahead”, through this commitment to execute innovative initiatives such as the virtual assistant, in addition to other initiatives, he emphasizes.
Along the same innovative lines is the ‘Symon’ project, created to combat the scourge of unwanted loneliness among older people through an intelligent monitoring system; or the 16 ‘cyberkiosks’, which have been installed in a pioneering way in the city, with the aim of reducing the digital divide and facilitating municipal procedures for citizens, an initiative that turns Alicante into a reference city.
These innovation projects and the “excellent” work developed by the municipal technicians of the Department of Innovation, Information Technology and Digital Agenda have been recognized six times with the ‘Telecommunications Night’ award, the ‘CIO award’ for implementation of the City Council’s teleworking network, and recognition as finalists for the 2023 European innovation award.
Along with this, the award given to councilor Antonio Peral as a finalist for the awards for the best director of the Public Administration of Spain. Likewise, the City Council is currently a finalist for the European awards of the Institute of Political Innovation, in the category of ‘Good Government’ that will be awarded in Barcelona on May 2, and finally, the current recognition by the OECD.
