Porto Digital: on the way to the knowledge based society City of ...

3.3. Governance: partnership and leadership
Taking into consideration the high number of sub-projects to be implemented and in order
to guarantee consistency and inter-operability between the project results, the four main
promoters decided to create a specific entity, the <strong>Porto</strong> <strong>Digital</strong> Association. This non-profit
association was responsible for coordination and assumed full responsibility for the <strong>Porto</strong>
<strong>Digital</strong> project.
The main responsibilities of the association are to nominate the project manager, to set
objectives for the short-, medium- and long-term as well as to define strategies and launch
initiatives to secure the sustainability of the project after the end of public financing.
All in all, 38 partners participate in the <strong>Porto</strong> <strong>Digital</strong> project, that is the <strong>Porto</strong> <strong>Digital</strong>
Association, its four founder institutions and 33 other organisations. Other participants
include: public and private higher educations institutions, consulting companies, vocational
training companies, business associations, museums and other cultural institutions,
information technology and multimedia companies, local state agencies, research
organisations, financial institutions, the regional development agency, organisations
supporting social inclusion as well as the wine institute and wine trade associations, etc.
These partner organisations are responsible for specific tasks in the sub-projects. The <strong>Porto</strong>
<strong>Digital</strong> Association signed an internal consortium agreement with every partner involved
in the project. According to their technical capabilities, skills and experience, the partners
play different roles in the implementation of the 10 sub-projects. A common aspect is that
everybody had to contribute financially.
The project had a very strong political backing from the <strong>Porto</strong> City Council, which headed
four sub-projects and supported the project management team in difficult decisions
regarding changing time management or financial aspects. Furthermore, as some subprojects
were directly related to the implementation of new services at the city council, the
top managers of the city made particular efforts towards the quick implementation of the
subprojects (e.g. e-procurement).
The contribution of the <strong>Porto</strong> University was also very enthusiastic through the direct
participation of its rector on the <strong>Porto</strong> <strong>Digital</strong> Association Board. The university is one of
the institutions to benefit from the project as its premises, located in different sites of the
city, will also be connected by the broadband network.
3.4. Innovative elements and novel approaches to implementation
There are a number of innovative elements worth mentioning as regards the project
implementation.
Commercialisation
The commercial exploitation of the broadband network has been considered since the
project outset. This infrastructure has potentially a high economic value as it is of interest
to Internet service suppliers. The establishment of commercial agreements with Internet
suppliers will cover the maintenance costs and generate income to the <strong>Porto</strong> <strong>Digital</strong>
Association. For the time being, the exploitation of the network is not generating revenues
as the entities that are using it receive the service for free.
7