Hungarian Conservative

While speaking at a public administration conference in Tata, Hungary, Minister for Regional Development and Public Administration Tibor Navracsics spoke of the ‘paradigm shift’ digitalization is bringing to Hungarian public administration. However, he also stressed that digital administration does not mean replacing government offices or the physical presence of public administrations, but rather expanding services.

Given the uncontrollable nature of AI and its potential to shape social perception, legislative action in this area has been long awaited. The European Union, recognizing the urgency and importance of this issue, has been at the forefront with its recently adopted Artificial Intelligence Act.

‘The character of the educator is a fundamental determinant of the personal development of students, and in addition to professional knowledge, it has therefore been important throughout the centuries to be able to set an example also in the personality of the teacher.’

The Free Market Road Show, held for the ninth time, was organized in collaboration with the Austrian Economics Center and the Danube Institute. This year’s speakers discussed topics such as Central Bank Digital Currencies and the related issues of individual freedom and privacy, new economic strategies for a post-COVID world, and how global security threats, such as wars and migration, affect trade.

‘In the modern, global-technological civilization based on the parallel structures of technical rationality, the idea of ​​freedom still arises as an “abstract freedom” that is allegedly “the same for everyone”. But, regarding recent facts and conditions, this concept of freedom has lost all realistic content. Following the example of the idea of ​​philosophical atomism, the human individual is still imagined as an atom, and from this social atomism it also follows that the modern individual is no longer an organ of a transcendental reality, but rather the social “whole” is derived from this collective of individuals.’

As part of the SopronFest series, János Áder, Chairman of the Blue Planet Climate Protection Foundation, addressed various topics during the recorded conversation, including the difference in attitudes towards environmental issues between Generation Y, which grew up with digitalization, and Generation Z, which was born into it.

The aim of the HU-rizont programme is to facilitate and strengthen the international collaboration of outstanding Hungarian researchers. A total of 8 billion forints are available for the application this year. During the application process, not only the research costs of Hungarian universities are covered, but also those of foreign universities are supported.

Speaking in Szolnok, State Secretary for Education Zoltán Maruzsa noted that notebooks are distributed at more than 3,000 distribution points not only in state institutions but also in church, minority, municipal, and foundation schools. In Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County alone 4,499 laptops of the total 193,000 will be handed out at sixty-two distribution points.

In the first two phases of the nationwide laptop programme launched in 2022, 260,000 portable computers were provided free of charge to upper-grade students, teachers, and educational institutions. From this week until the beginning of the summer break, an additional nearly 194,000 devices will be distributed, while starting from autumn 2024, current fourth and eighth graders will be next in line.

The press release indicates that the television audience has aged more rapidly over the past two and a half decades than the general Hungarian population. In 2022, those sitting in front of the screen were, on average, ten years older than the overall population, whereas 25 years ago, this difference was merely four years.

The Hungarian 4iG Group and German Rheinmetall will contribute to the digitalization of the defence forces by developing digital soldier, simulation and training systems in Hungary and in certain NATO member countries in the Central and Eastern European region. In this segment, the 4iG Group and Rheinmetall expect to generate revenues of €200-300 million over five years.

Alongside the distribution of laptops that started last year, more than 4,000 locations have been equipped with wireless internet access, and with a budget of 10 billion forints, the electrical networks of the relevant institutions have been renovated.

In his presentation titled ‘Digitalization in Service of Sustainable Development,’ Áder pointed out that the National Digitalization Strategy set the goal for the widespread adoption of technologies and the expansion of capabilities by the government. According to the strategy, by 2030, 95 per cent of households will be covered by a gigabit-capable network.

The goal of digital public administration is to transition citizens to online management of public affairs, promising speed, ease of use, and data security. A prerequisite for this is the synchronization and integration of relevant IT systems. IdomSoft, the company responsible for state digitalization in Hungary, collaborates with researchers from Pázmány Péter Catholic University.

On the margins of the Hungarian PM’s visit to Huawei’s headquarters in Shenzhen, Minister of Economic Development Márton Nagy and Gao Weijie, the CEO of Huawei Technologies Hungary and the Western Balkans Region signed a memorandum of understanding, further deepening the strategic cooperation between the Hungarian government and Huawei that began in 2013.

‘During his presentation at the media authority’s conference on the regulatory challenges of child protection, Levente Nyakas highlighted the importance of shared interpretations of media content and the world in a parent-child relationship. It is essential that parents understand and are aware of the content their children consume.’

From the inception of post-Soviet Hungary, East Asian relations have been oriented towards trade as well as knowledge and information exchange. With the opening up of the Hungarian economy, foreign direct investment (FDI) began to flow in from Taiwan, China, and India, and was widely distributed over a diverse range of sectors including finance, retail, mining, and those that this article focuses on: automotive manufacturing and logistics.

As long as people are conditioned to become consumers by advertising applied on an industrial scale, and as long as material comfort and interest are above all else, the environmental crisis will not be solved satisfactorily and especially not with more technology.