Page 35 - Sphere No.9 (Sep 2003)

T wo years ago, a group of
blind people attended a
demonstration of ESDlife,
Hong Kong’s unique e-
government website which
provides numerous options to tackle red
tape over the Internet rather than in
person. Services range from booking
sports facilities and weddings to fixing an
appointment with the Immigration
Department or filing an online tax return.
The experience proved to be a
revelation, not just for the blind people
but for the presenters as well.
For obvious reasons, the Internet is not
generally user-friendly to the visually
impaired, but ESDlife is an exception.
When the website was being conceived,
a special “Virtual Vision” task force was
set up to promote the rights of
information for the blind and the visually
impaired. With their needs in mind,
ESD life was designed to allow blind
people to “see” and “surf ” the website
through translatable Braille monitors. To
assist them further, text descriptions are
provided for visual or graphic elements
and everything is understandable when
viewed without colour.
The mere novelty of going online for
the first time proved predictably
fascinating for those with sight problems.
The reaction of one trialist in particular
surprised and amused observers.
“I couldn’t understand why one of
them was so happy to find out about the
tax return,” recalls Tony Ma, ESDlife’s
Chief Operating Officer.“Until the blind
man explained with a grin: ‘I no longer
have to tell my wife how much I earn!’”
To Tony, the response was a revelation:
“It didn’t occur to me that whenever
blind people fill in forms, they don’t have
any privacy. They need someone else to
help with the paperwork and have to
reveal everything about themselves.
Sometimes you forget how important
privacy is.”
The option to fill in tax returns
privately, for the first time, brings
empowerment and self-respect.
“We’re giving them the privacy they
deserve. It makes ESDlife much more than
a business. It’s a genuine contribution to
Hong Kong society,”Tony says.
“Of course, we are a commercial
enterprise and our primary goal is to
create value for shareholders. But we also
want to create value for society. We’re
changing lives.”
Nobody expected ESDlife to
revolutionise the lives of Hong Kong
citizens overnight. However, slowly but
surely, it really is making a difference.
The portal was launched in January
2001, part of the Hong Kong
Government’s initiative to establish a
world-leading “Digital City”. The
objective was to place 90% of
government services online by 2003.
It was long overdue. In a fast-moving
city where time is perhaps the most
valuable commodity, nothing infuriates
the Hong Kong public so much as the
despised government queue for ID cards,
driving licences, sports facilities,
auspicious wedding days and so on.
Especially tiresome is that most
government business is conducted only
during office hours, Monday to Friday,
9am to 5pm and on Saturday mornings.
As if there’s nothing better to do during
working hours!
For the government, the challenge was
to find a way to physically make services
and information more conveniently
available to the public. The Internet,
operating 24 hours a day, seemed the
obvious solution.The main question was
how to run it efficiently and effectively.
A STEP FURTHER
Every existing form of e-government
was, and still is, operated by governments.
But Hong Kong wanted to go a step
further. Not only was the objective to
promote e-government but also private
e-commerce, which was in the very early
stages of development. Other countries,
led by the United States, had a host of
well-established e-commerce dotcoms.
But Hong Kong lagged so far behind that
it was virtually “e-absent” when it came
to home-grown e-commerce businesses.
The innovative solution was to link
e-government and e-commerce together
and to outsource the operation to an
independent operator.
So began ESDlife , developed and
operated by ESD Services, a joint venture
between Hutchison Whampoa Limited
and Hewlett-Packard.
“It’s a visionary idea,” says Tony. “It is
the only Internet portal in the world
DAWN OF A
DIGITAL CITY
Internet portal ESD life is dramatically changing the way Hong Kong citizens connect to
government services while also pioneering e-commerce in the territory.
By Tim Mecalfe
S PHERE
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