DIGI-Q success in the Czech Republic CQS – Czech Association for Quality System Certification participated in the international project DIGI-Q in the period 2002-2004. The subtitle of the DIGI-Q project was “Quality and online confidence in SMEs e-business process”. The project was supported by EU funds. The objective was to develop training and awareness for helping the SMEs in implementation and certification of their e-business processes. The project results enabled the SMEs to increase their capabilities to be more competitive in the digital economy age. There was a consortium nominated for the project management during the project period. It was created by eight organisations from five countries covering representatives from Universities, Certification Bodies - IQNet partners and R&D centres from EU and CEE countries. The organisations involved prepared courses on Quality Certification and e-Business processes together with Best Practice pilots for SMEs in their countries. The excellent working atmosphere during the consortium meetings sharing the best practices from all parties involved in the project. The overall focus of the project was to reach the following goals: A set of innovative and advanced training courses, fully dedicated to the SMEs e-business processes qualification /certification, 100 young people interested in working in SMEs fully trained and employed 100 SMEs directly involved in the initiative A permanent observatory to maintain the activity in a long time period At least 70 project works Web site assessment and recommendations for improvements Implementation of information risk assessment and risk treatment, project management, data protection management Validation of methods The DIGI-Q project served to the CQS as an excellent training and marketing tool for promotion the certification of ISMS according to the BS 7799 and Good Priv@cy certification in the Czech Republic. Unfortunately, the Czech market is not ready to accept the Q-web certification at present. The Czech legislation recommends to public organizations to have their information systems certified. The certification - called attestation - is carried using Czech national standards. As the national standards are replaced by the relevant international standards present, the project enabled pilot implementation and certification of the information security management system in the county office of Pardubice against the BS 7799 standard. The relevant IQNet certificate was granted to the county office representatives in the presence of the Czech minister of informatics Mr. Vladimir MLYNAR in November 2004 and the ceremony was an exceptional opportunity to present the project added value to Czech government members. The project provided funds to realize interesting and very useful courses like ISMS implementation in SMEs and BS 7799 Lead assessor course. At the same time the project enabled to implement ISMS systems in several companies and it covered the preparation of the methodologies for SW testing according to ISO IEC 12119 either. Publication of exploitation plan served as an example of the good practices of EU in supporting new members entering EU. The DIGI-Q project was very successful. Therefore it was decided to continue the activities in the area and participate in a new international project planned for 2006-2008. The project will be oriented for SMEs support again and several IQNet partners are involved into this project as well. We believe there will be a space for all parties involved to bring a new added value for IQNet marketing activities in the new project in the forthcoming period. Dr Vladimir FILIAC, President of CQS vfiliac@ezu.cz