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Cases - Government - Making new services familiar
Making new services familiar
The need for training in knowledge society citizen skills has been well understood in Tampere and received investment. Excellent examples include the pride of Tampere, the Netti-Nysse internet bus, the eHelpdesk eTupa, which provides assistance with everyday problems, and the city’s free-of-charge public internet terminals.
Encouragement from the Netti-Nysse internet bus
The Tampere City Library’s Netti-Nysse internet bus has been the figurehead of the eTampere programme from the start. It has provided knowledge society skills to thousands of citizen and also built Tampere’s reputation as a model city of knowledge society both on the national and international levels.
Basic training in knowledge society skills is still needed and this will remain Netti-Nysse’s key task. In the instruction of computer basics, the staff aboard Netti-Nysse rely on common sense, calm, clarity and humour. The feedback has been very positive. Future plans to complement basic instruction include content production.
Netti-Nysse has also served as a gallery for media art and as a location to submit applications to various educational facilities and market and set up electricity accounts, as well as pre-vote in the presidential elections. There are many possibilities. Netti-Nysse could, for example, bring rarer and more expensive software into the use of schools or support rescue personnel in crisis situations. There is also a desire to expand regional cooperation.
The fault lies not in the user’s head. Welcome to eTupa!
eTupa is a helpdesk for households, providing assistance with various problems, large and small, related to obtaining and using a computer. eTupa helps in a way that is easy to understand; there’s no shame in asking the simplest of questions.
Professional service advisers are available free of charge at eTupa, and for a small fee they can also pay home visits to assist with the acquisition and set-up of computers, their peripherals and internet connections, data security and the use of equipment, software and online services.
Stop by at an internet terminal
Free-of-charge public internet terminals are one means of ensuring access to online services. In Tampere it is possible to stop by at the city’s more than 140 terminals intended for the use of the general public. Most of the terminals are in libraries. Terminals are also available in other public areas and in the premises of some private companies, organizations and communities.
