It has been my honor and privilege to edit and be a part of this book. This has really been an intellectually stimulating experience and a wonderful opportunity to meet and share ideas with many distinguished speakers who actively took part and made presentations at the International Conference on Global e-Governance at Waseda University. It has been a revelation to uncover the wealth of innovations that are expected to meet the needs of various nations and overcome challenges faced.

My most sincere appreciation goes to the speakers from various governments, business entities and academia. In the spirit of cross-border knowledge sharing, they have unselfishly shared their wisdom and experience and contributed to the overall knowledge on e-Governance.

“e-Governance” is regarded as one of the most important subjects in the Information Society. Global e-governance for both public and private sectors is becoming extremely significant in an innovative and seamless world community.

Waseda University Institute of e-Government, founded in 2001, is a pioneer for capacity-building on CIO training and human resource development as well as international ranking on e-government activities. It has also played an important role of regional ICT cooperation in APEC region as APEC e-Government Research Center.

This book is divided into five (5) parts:

• The 1st chapter is entitled “Information/Ubiquitous Society” and offers understanding of what information society or ubiquitous society is all about. There have been many perspectives and many frameworks since these terms evolved and we at the Institute have reviewed these and explored what it meant to be on the global e-Governance.

• The 2nd chapter is entitled “e-Government”. In this chapter, individual papers presented dealt with different countries/areas in the world focusing on all of their visions, strategies and priority areas as well as on the key challenges and lessons of e-Government. The selection covered (Japan, China, Thailand, USA, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia and Taiwan) give a fair reflection of different e-Government scenarios.

• The 3rd chapter is entitled “e-Municipality” and focuses on several key areas – some services, infrastructures and practices. The presenters share their views on what is happening and the real situations at key areas of e-municipality solutions, services and current challenges.

• The 4th chapter is entitled “ICT and Applications”. In this chapter, we introduced and highlighted several applications in the field of ICT including broadband and disaster issues.

• The 5th and final chapter is entitled “The Role of CIO” where CIO (Chief Information Officer) is at present the most attractive post within organizations at the stage of Information Society. We are very fortunate to have invited such honorable speakers in this field.

The book contains the views of various speakers with a profound experience in global e-Governance and I have found that key objectives are common to all. Finally, the quality of this book was ensured by the exemplary editorial efforts of the brilliant researchers at Waseda University Institute of e-Government.