Hilversum Media City; IT at its most effective

The Municipality of Hilversum, with its more than 90,000 inhabitants one of the larger municipalities in North Holland, clearly focuses first and foremost on its residents in the field of digital services. Their website is a very clear example of this and offers many possibilities directly on the home-page that many other municipalities have to look for for a long time. There is a strategy behind this.

It seems so simple; for many standard actions, citizens can submit their requests, make reports, apply for passports, etc., directly from the home-page of the Municipality of Hilversum. This indicates a strategy in which IT is primarily a means and not an end in itself for citizens and their own employees. Let’s create IT at its most effective!

Integration strategy indispensable at Hilversum

Of course, to make it simple for users, a lot has to be done behind the scenes. The Hilversum municipality’s IT staff were also convinced at an early stage that an integration strategy was indispensable in order to continue to meet the ever-increasing expectations of citizens and employees. Because at the same time, of course, new laws and regulations and new technology are constantly coming their way. That is why a start was made at an early stage with the use of JNet’s OpenTunnel (now Enable U) to quickly and safely establish links with all kinds of national facilities.

The changes keep coming. In addition to new standards such as HaalCentraal, where data is retrieved directly from the source, there are partnerships with tax offices, security regions and other organizations and companies with which data must be exchanged. Citizens and businesses expect an ever-higher level of service, civil servants want to work even more data-driven and all this must be more efficient and secure than ever before.

Enable U 2Distribute

The municipality of Hilversum was one of the first municipalities in the Netherlands to use Enable U 2Distribute, a data distribution solution that is fully purchased as a cloud service and where data can be exchanged with new applications that work with the HaalCentraal protocol, for example, but also with applications that still exchange data according to old standards (such as StUF). In addition, it is possible to offer subscription forms so that customers automatically receive updates from, for example, BRP, Chamber of Commerce or BAG. This eliminates the need for a lot of manual actions and makes implementing new services a lot easier.

Eddy van den Berg, Functional Manager ESB & Test Manager of the municipality of Hilversum; “Every year we organize an ‘Innovation Conversation’ with our partner Enable U. In which we share the projects and improvement projects for the coming year. In this conversation, we look at how we can best connect to the latest technical developments of Enable U. We also look at what we might be able to participate in. Enable U is more than just a supplier.”

Karl de Boer, Product Manager of Enable U and long-time involved with the municipality of Hilversum: “It is always a pleasure to work with the IT Team of the municipality of Hilversum. Even if it doesn’t all go smoothly (as with the first versions of 2Distribute), we continue to trust each other and the technology. And if such a great solution eventually rolls out, I am happy that I was able to do it together with Eddy and his colleagues.”

Jascha Gregorowitsch, CTO of Enable U; “With 2Distribute, we have taken a new path. Municipalities realize that they will have to continue to use existing and new data distribution techniques side by side for a long time to come. And that takes a lot of time, effort and money. Our solution takes a lot of work away from the municipality so that they can concentrate on even better services and new initiatives.”