Digital Success Programme of Hungary - A breakthrough in digital developments

Digitalisation is now a phenomenon with a fundamental impact on everyday life, the operation of corporations, national economic trends, and, as a result, the performance of the world economy. Digital transformation is a comprehensive social change that creates opportunities and has people themselves in its focus. The Government of Hungary has realised the significance of this transformation, so we do not intend to protect citizens and businesses from digitalisation, but we intend to prepare them for it.

Digital Success Programme

Digitális Jólét Program (DJP), Digital Success Programme in English, launched by the Government of Hungary in late 2015 – relying on the results of InternetKon, a national consultation about the Internet and digital developments –, affects the entire digital ecosystem and the aim is that every Hungarian citizen and business can benefit from digitalisation. The digitalisation process in Hungary has no doubt gained speed recently, which has also been supported by the measures of the Digital Success Programme. Strategies that will steer digital development in the coming years have been devised: Digital Education Strategy of Hungary, Digital Export Development Strategy of Hungary, Digital Startup Strategy of Hungary, Digital Child Protection Strategy of Hungary. Other important decisions have also been made, in cooperation with all the stakeholders of the digital ecosystem, and these are significant at a broader, European level as well. These decisions include reducing the VAT on Internet usage from 27% in two steps, to 18% then to 5%, creating the lowest such tax in the European Union.

Digital Success Programme 2.0

In addition to making the Internet accessible and affordable for everyone, and beside infrastructure development, the digitalisation of education, and other ongoing programmes, the Digital Success Programme also intends to contribute to Hungary’s preparation for the digital transformation in new areas in the coming years. After broad consultations with the professional community and the general public, in the summer of 2017 the Government of Hungary decided to extend the Digital Success Programme and to accept Digital Success Programme 2.0., which is a strategy for gaining digital advantage, as its digitalisation-supporting programmes cover almost every field of the digital development of the Hungarian economy, the operation of the state, and the Hungarian society. Digitalisation is the largest economic development programme of the coming decade, and one of the most important means to achieve success and growth. DJP2.0 sets out 89 actions in 26 thematic areas along five pillars. 

DJP2030 - Digital Government (Human-Machine-System / Data-Robot Network)

While a few years ago we could only say that proactive participation in digitisation is a basic condition for a nation’s competitiveness, today, by 2020, we need to say that digitisation is at least as much a sovereignty as it is a question of competitiveness. Not only because there is no sovereign state without a competitive national economy, but also because of the 19th century. By the end of the 2010s, the classical parliamentary, democratic governmental structure that had developed in the 20th century and was still functioning effectively, and the legal approaches based on it, faced challenges like never before. In an extremely fast-changing digital ecosystem, global stories written by global technology companies have a direct and powerful impact on people’s lives that traditional government operations can barely handle in many ways, especially consumer protection, burden-sharing, and data protection. The future of the Digital Success Programme is provided by the DJP2030 strategic framework, which builds on the successes of DJP 1.0 as well as 2.0 but identifies development challenges as well as opportunities and competitive disadvantages. One of the main tasks of DJP, the Digital Success Programme 2030, is to propose new solutions and institutions that can effectively interpret and address the global challenges and opportunities created by digitalisation in international cooperation. The starting point of DJP is that the state is also responsible for the digital well-being of its citizens, therefore the central theme of the DJP2030 is digital state governance. The DJP2030 defines its strategic goals and areas of intervention in a triple division, in relation to the human-machine system. In 2020, several key strategic documents prepared within the framework of the Digital Success Programme will be submitted to the Government, such as the Artificial Intelligence and Sport Strategy of Hungary and the Action Plan of the Digital Agricultural Strategy.

Successful digital transformation can place Hungary among the leading countries in Europe.  In the coming years, DJP will continue to contribute to the work that prepares Hungary for the inevitable digital transformation as much as possible.

• A presentation about the Digital Success Programme is avaiable in English via the following link:
  Digital Success Programme 2030
  
  

• The Digital Child Protection Strategy of Hungary, which was adopted in Government Decree 1488/2016 (IX. 2), is available in English via the following link:
  The Digital Child Protection Strategy of Hungary
  
  

• The Digital Export Development Strategy of Hungary, which was adopted in Government Decree 1491/2016 (IX. 15), is available in English via the following link:
  The Digital Export Development Strategy of Hungary 
  
  

• The Digital Education Strategy of Hungary, which was adopted in Government Decree 1536/2016 (IX. 13), is available in English via the following link:
  The Digital Education Strategy of Hungary 
  
  

• The Digital Startup Strategy of Hungary, which was adopted in Government Decree 1858/2016 (XII. 27), is available in English via the following link:
  The Digital Startup Strategy of Hungary