E-government in Uruguay: A way to improve citizenship

With the coming of the information technologies (IT), the Government of Uruguay find itself in front of the possibility to bring  near, to facilitate and to implicate the citizens in the governance process.

In this context, the Plan Ceibal appeared in 2007. Inspired by "One Laptop per Child" program, Ceibal looks for the digital inclusion of the new generations, endowing each pupil of the public system of education with a laptop.

 In the long term, the goal is to expand the access to the Society of the Information and Knowledge. In the same way, the "Agencia para el Desarrollo del Gobierno de Gestión Electrónica y la Sociedad de la Información y del Conocimiento" was created in 2005 with the aim of fully exploit of information technologies, with the objective to improve the services to citizens.

This paper will present the leading characteristics of the development of the public policies in information's access, taking into account two big lines of action. On the one hand, focus in the Programa Ceibal, his developmental potentialities for the new generations and his civic empowerment capability. For another one, the development status of e-gov's, the principal advances  in Uruguay, as well as the found difficulties and challenges to the future.