Chairman, COMITATO ANNO 2000
traduzione in inglese curata da Ercole
Guidi
reperibile in originale all'indirizzo http://www.orc.ca/~guidi
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, Government representatives, Public Officials and welcome foreign Guests, I have often insisted in defining the National Conference for the Conversion of the I.T. Systems to the Year 2000 as an "Institutional Event" rather than a mere Convention, however important, in which to debate a very serious problem for the quality of our social interactions in the immediate future.
Such distinction is not only formally justified. Indeed, it is the Government Executive Order (DPCM) of December 14, 1998, to entrust (using the verb "must") the [Year 2000] Committee with-- amongst many exacting tasks--that of calling a "National Conference" to discuss with public and private representatives the status of their remediation efforts and that of their critical areas, as well as to report on its surveying and monitoring activities.
The scope of the Conference--mostly practical and introductory to future action and decisions to be taken by Central, Regional and Local Government Administrations--therefore appears of immediate importance. For this reason, the Government Executive Order Mission Statement has been printed on the invitation cards.
This Conference, however, takes place only six months after the establishment of the Committee, five months after the appointment of the Area Coordinators that form the Executive Office, three months after a partial and difficult start of operation due to insufficient resources--especially human--allocated to the Committee. I wish to point out that the deadline for the Conference call (May 1999) had already been set out in the Government Executive Order of August 6, 1998, issued by Mr. Prodi (Italy's former Prime Minister) with nearly identical wording. The Order could never be implemented due to the Government crisis thereafter.
What I mean to say, is that the subtraction of four months to the Committee available time was bound to have a material impact as to the substantial and methodologycal aspects of this Conference.
As regards the substantial aspects: the Committee can provide only partial survey and monitoring, and even preliminary ones as concerns such fundamental areas as those of public administrations and local essential services. Indeed, thanks (and I stress thanks) to the precious cooperation of the Ministry of Interior and the Prefetti (Provincial Officials of the Ministry of Interior) has been possible, through a first approach questionnaire, to assess the alarming ignorance of most of the local administrations upon the necessity of converting their computer systems to the Year 2000.
Surveys focused on remediation progress of more specific sectors began at a later date (very recently), and the findings that will be reported by the area coordinators require further processing. In general, the emerging picture appears unsatisfactory. I must point out that the current surveys, (which will be continued) in other Countries (in the UK and the Northern European Countries, just to mention our Continent) have began years ago.
The methodologycal aspects are inevitably tied to the substantial aspects: for the assessment of conversion process and progress thereof , the Committee must rely upon the trustworthiness of Group or Area Organizations, whose cooperation, however, it deems essential. I am saying this only to underscore a further hindrance to the Committee's action: even as a consequence of its late establishment, the Committee cannot contract--as it normally happens elsewhere--indipendent consultants for the technical assessment of the remediation progress and the assessment of the procedures enacted by the interested parties.
This explains the particular arrangement of the participants in this Conference: Area Authorities, Professional Organizations, Major Infrastructures represented by major national enterprises. Entities which, as a whole, may be defined as the backbone of our Country.
Large Infrastructures (proceeding bottom-up from the participation schedule) have been invited to submit actual reports on conversion work--which they began years ago (in some cases it is nearing completion, hopefully successfull)--achievements, remaining problems and on their plans to guarantee mission-critical operations or contingency plans that must however be in place. On their part, Professional Organizations will report on their significant awareness, coordination and cooperation efforts that have been in place, often spontaneously, among their members, and that are now to continue in close cooperations with the Comitato Anno 2000.
Finally, Authorities will report on supervision and, in some cases, close monitoring of the conversion process in their area of jurisdiction. Some Authorities (e.g., AIPA) have already reported and published, in other institutionally relevant instances, the interim results of such activities. I will only recall, not only because it is very recent, but also for its timely cut, the attention devoted to the Millennium Bug by the Governor of the Banca d'Italia (Italy's Central Bank) in his report to the Bank General Assembly (end of May). The Governor, with regard to the monitoring of the payments system and the supervision of banks and non-banking financial brokers, outlines with extreme precision the path to be followed (and that has been followed by the banking system) as concerns schedule and procedures. He recognizes, in particular, that conversion projects are particularly complex to manage, require "great attention" in procedure testing, must be tested and, above all, require that contingeny plans be in place in case of potential failures.
Therefore, all of the entities that I have just mentioned are the principals in this Conference, even because here they will take on, or will confirm, unavoidable legal responsibilities upon which I shall briefly return later on.
My reference to the Banca d'Italia Governor's notes is also useful because it shows the correct path and method that each individual organization, regardless of the magnitude of its I.T. structures, must follow to attain an effective compliance to the Year 2000. I believe it worthwhile to return once more upon this 5 phases step by step unavoidable path:
This last point is of special importance because it shows that business or administrative decisions may no longer be considered as merely technical in nature, but have acquired a much wider organizational and strategic value. Again I must insist upon this concept, as in several occasions I have heard managers of major businesses and Utilities say: "The Millennium Bug is a technical hitch for the engineers to solve".
But so is not: it may be enough to consider that the high costs involved with the remediation process may, in some cases, have a material impact on financial results and future operations of entities that operate in a market environment and are subject to market rules.
I mentioned earlier that our Country, unlike others, did not or could not contract, to indipendent consultants, the authority to issue compliance certification for the Year 2000, with particular regard to public services, whether public or private. Undoubtedly, this is a major handicap for the organization in general and its action for the conversion process; neither can the Committee help the situation in any ways. It has no means (in every sense), nor such a task is expressely provided for in the Executive Order.
In any case, the Committee will make the outmost use of the legislative recognition it was granted just one month ago by Bill 144 of May 17, 1999, and of such relevant powers as that of requiring and obtaining from public and private entities (expressely named in the Bill) all "information and data" that are essential for the Committee to fulfil its mission. In this regard, I wish to announce that within September, in accordance with one of the assigned tasks, the Committee will require that all entities that provide "services of social relevance" submit continuity of operation plans, whatever the status of their remediation progress.
The second day of the Conference will focus, in particular, onto an in-depth review of two crucial and interconnected issues: public information and the potential legal liabilities that may be incurred by those entities that will not have pursued with proven diligence the conversion process, for the resulting unavoidable damages.
A correct and timely, yet not exasperated information will allow the citizens not only to adequately face possible disruptions by rationally adjusting their normal behavioural patterns, so as not to burden any unpleasant situation for themselves and others. It will also develop the level of their civic and legal response towards those who may have not acted effectively to avoid uncomfortable situations.
The problem of responsibility, if not adequately and wisely dealt with, may well become itself another bug in the year 2000. It is a complex problem (the sum of many interlaced issues), whose dimensions may easily be trans-national. For this reason, I trust that the jurists that have accepted to participate in the round table, may form a first work group to deal with solutions, even regulatory in nature, to prevent a chain of lawsuits that in the end could result into a zero sum.
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, the complexity of the issue (someone has called it an "epoch making event") of the Millennium Bug requires that everyone play his own part: private entities no less that public ones. All must observe certain common behavioural rules, we may say "universal rules", internationally recommended. Such rules may be squeezed into principles: that of the maximum transparency, that of the maximum cooperation and solidarity, that of the maximum sharing.
I will pause only on the latter with a non theoretical approach, but an entirely practical one. Sharing means, above all, anyone's willingness and availability to inform others (especially those in similar situations) of the specific difficulties encountered in his own remediation process, and not only publicize the positive results. I am saying this because, thus far, I hardly ever happened to hear of anyone in our Country whom has publicized with sufficient, useful and usable (by others) information the problems which he had to confront with: almost as if we were to confess of some shameful disease. Such a regressive attitude does not certainly help our Country's progress towards the achievement of I.T. compliance to the Year 2000.
Among the public entities, the Government must also play its part: a part which, in the present situation, one of widespread, alarming lack of awareness, needs to become absolutely visible and effectively operational. The "poor" Comitato anno-2000, established too late, beyond any reasonable time limits (and time, unlike virtue, is perhaps the only resource that it is impossible to make up for) can no longer be the only answer. The Government, I believe, must immediately consider the opportunity of appointing an "ad-hoc" Council of Ministers (the Ministers overseeing the Infrastructures) that may supervise with full political responsibility and adequate decisional authority the preparation of those emergency plans that can no longer be postponed. Emergency plans that must be coordinated and armonized with those of our European partners; and, even in this case, at the highest political level and not within those unlistened-to, almost undercover-operating technical task groups.
Furthermore, the Council of Ministers (respected, efficient, effective, determined) that I have in mind could easily resolve some of the problems that for the Comitato anno-2000--for the President of this Committee--are daunting obstacles: how to reconcile the geometrically unyielding lenght of certain bureaucratic passages with the inesorable ticking away of the days, one after the other, that cry for immediate action, for choices that cannot afford the pace of bureaucracy.
It is for this inability or, perhaps, impossibility to find the right north star that the Comitato has not yet been able to implement a global communication package, although already approved and defined in many meetings for months, with the enthusiastic cooperation of consultants from Eurodesk and the team of Rai Educational (Rai is Italy's Public TV Network) that had been selected because of its experience, professionality and its short and certain delivery times, as the most suitable for such a task. Well, the work of months has vanished due to contractual glitches: to "self-combustion" as the saying goes, in absence of other reasons, while watching the unfailing Summer forrest fires that plague our Country from immemorable times.
Yet, only two days ago I received the findings of a fresh survey conducted by SWG on the level of awareness of the Italians on the Millennium Bug problem: only 15% of the respondents (June 10-11) is aware of the problem with less than half of the year left to December 31, 1999. It could even be taken as a good news: Ignorance and Disinformation: the Italians show the way to avoid mass panic so feared abroad....
The analytical data and the methodology of the survey are published in the Comitato Website. I duly note that the survey has been provided to the Comitato courtesy of SWG, even to avoid "Contractual Glitches"....
Let me conclude, nevertheless, with an optimistic consideration. Our Country, from the difficult-- and for many still largely unknown--issue of the Millennium Bug, which this conference will evaluate in all its aspects, might gain, so to speak, an "added value": the mature perception that the global information society and information exchange cannot be left to improvisation and ignorance, neither could it develop in an anarchical, wild dimension.. Even in this case, may be more than in others, development must be sustainable, coherent, mild. Only thus the new technologies will come to be precious resources for the improvement of the quality of our lives and of our community living.