Digital technologies play a key role in reviving the world economy. The EU has pledged to combine recovery support with resilient digital transformation. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the lack of digitization in Slovakia and the shortcomings of digital skills in citizens and communication with institutions. Digital skills are important and should form part of educational policy. ICT skills can help people succeed in the labour market and improve communication with public administration. Digitization and globalization increase the importance to communicate through the Internet, applications, and other e-based gadgets. Digital skills are one of the essential parts of e-Government, so people can use e-Government services in communication with public administration. The current crisis is affecting citizens’ use of online services. Indices concerning the digital economy are analysed, such as the digital economy and society index DESI and e-Government digital skills (EGDI) from 2018 to 2021 revealed a stagnant state in 2018 and 2019, and in 2020, there was a decrease in basic digital skills. The next index is E-Government Digital Index. It focuses on human capital and digital skills in these indices. The paper analyses and identifies the digital skills of citizens in the context of e-Government development and describes the use of e-Government services by EU citizens with a focus on the Slovak Republic. The data were collected through a questionnaire survey of Slovak Republic citizens’ digital skills according to selected categories, the use of e-Government services as well as awareness of e-Government services. Solutions that improve e-Government in the Slovak Republic are gradually being implemented. Improving digital skills according to the National Coalition for Digital Skills and Professions in the Slovak Republic is one of the priorities of The Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, which has adopted an action plan for 2019–2022 to improve the results in the DESI index by 2025 and focus on the digital skills required by employers. The survey revealed that in Slovakia, the majority of schools offer only weak support for digital education (about the EU-27 average of 68% and 45%, respectively). The research also revealed a decreased level of digital literacy among young people. These competencies are very important to gain a position in the labour market in the digital society. The projects aim to support the development of digital skills of primary and secondary school students, and the integration of new technologies into teaching.

This article deals with the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method, which can be calculated in several ways. The aim of the paper is to analyze and describe the AHP method as essential for strategic managerial decision-making to determine which method is efficient for the calculation and to set the proper order of criteria. In the contribution, we show how the AHP method can be used through different techniques. In the article, there are included methods that can be used in order to calculate the matrix in the AHP process for setting criteria. This study also focused on the accuracy of various methods used to compute AHP. The paper contains the procedure of using the Saaty method through the Excel program. The results of the research show that the most accurate method is the Saaty method. In comparison with the Saaty method is the geometric mean method with the slightest deviation (CI = 0.00010), followed by the Row sum of the adjusted Saaty matrix with deviation (CI = 0.00256), reverse sums of the Saaty matrix columns (CI = 0.00852), Arithmetic mean and Row sums of the Saaty matrix (CI = 0.01261). All of these methods are easy to calculate and can be performed without major mathematical calculations. The AHP method is often used with other methods such as SWOT, FUZZY, etc. The survey was carried out through an inquiry with managers who graduated from universities in Slovakia and showed that the respondents considered the Saaty method as the most complex and the most difficult. The geometric mean and average mean methods were regarded as the simplest methods. Respondents (44%) stated that they were able to use a program to calculate the AHP. Respondents (46%) had experience with some method related to the strategic managerial decision-making process. Managers (72%) regarded this skill as important for decision-making in their managerial position. The contribution of this paper is to show the advantages of the AHP method in its wide use in various fields.

Eco-innovation presents a tool that helps companies to transform environmental constraints into opportunities and advantages such as cost reduction, better reputation, and benefit for new markets. The purpose of the paper is to evaluate the perception of eco-innovation and green brands in the context of sustainability in Slovakia and their mutual relation. The applied research focused on the perception of eco-innovation and green brands. The survey was realized by the Kano model that provides customers’ opinions regarding the requirements of the monitored object. In our case, the research object is ecological innovation evaluated in terms of selected parameters. To generalize the relationships among examined parameters, cluster analysis was applied to identify clusters of examined parameters of ecological innovations. The aim of the contribution is to present the output of the cluster analysis in a form of a dendrogram showing a graphical grouping of related objects in three clusters that include examined parameters according to their perception by customers.

E-Government is one area of digitization that has been under way for several years in European countries. In this paper, we focus on identifying different indices that are aimed at measuring digitalization or e-Government. The results of the analysis showed that there are several indices that focus on this area within the EU, such as EGDI, EPI, LOSI, DGI, e-Government benchmark, Eurostat—Internet use, GII, DSGI, Going Digital toolkit, and DESI. Subsequently, the index areas to be used in the DEA method to measure the efficiency of e-Government-related inputs and outputs within the EU were identified. Inputs and outputs were selected logically and then verified using correlation analysis. Among the input and output indices chosen were Internet usage, DSGI, GII, e-Government benchmark, and interaction with public administration online. From the analysis, three inputs and three outputs were used and the models were output oriented. After implementing the correlation, it can be said that the values between the selected sub-variables are suitable for DEA analysis. Two models were chosen for the calculation, namely the CCR and BCC models. The CCR model found 10 states to be efficient and BCC model found 13 states to be efficient. In addition, in the close analysis, we took a closer look at the CCR model’s inference. Countries such as Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Malta, and Portugal were efficient outliers. When comparing the regions within the EU, we can conclude that the countries of Northern Europe are the most efficient in the field of digitalization (e-Government). As many as four countries out of seven are efficient.

Today’s modern society offers many new opportunities, but also many risks. Even modernization of companies cannot completely eliminate these dangers. In the smart industry, despite significant technological progress, it is necessary to work with various raw materials, including hazardous substances. It is these raw materials that will continue to pose risks in the future for industrial accidents, which cannot be ruled out. The possible release of hazardous substances can potentially have a negative impact on the environment and safety of the population. In order to deal with certain emergencies, it is necessary to allocate a large amount of funds and resources to them. The paper focuses on risk prevention in industry and the use of modern and new approaches. Specifically, it focuses on the implementation of the prevention of leakage of hazardous substances in the gaseous state from industrial facilities. The aim of the paper is to present a new approach to the prevention of leakage of hazardous substances, which provides more realistic calculations for modeling leaks and thus helps to reduce the cost of prevention. However, security in crisis management is not diminished. ALOHA CAMEO software was used for leak modeling, which the authors commonly use in practical applications and modeling in industrial enterprises in the performance of duties in the field of civil protection and crisis management. ALOHA software is used for such modeling, serving as a support tool for modeling for all crisis managers in Industry 4.0. This paper deals with the modeling of dispersion of hazardous substances with specific properties escaping from technological equipment located inside a building. This concerns the inability of the current dispersion model software to prevent the spread of the next leak inside the building containing the substance. A solution is needed to fix this problem. This issue is well illustrated by a specific example at the end of this article. The mentioned improvement of tools for simulation of industrial accidents influences the possibilities of development also in Industry 4.0. It enables more effective preparation for the management of possible accidents with regard to the appropriate spending of funds for prevention and subsequent response.

The current state of technological progress offers extensive opportunities for the development of urban infrastructure and the construction of Smart Cities, but the city will only become intelligent if it raises the living standards of all citizens in it. The Smart City uses information and communication technologies to improve its functionality and long-term sustainability and to increase the living standards of its citizens. In this context, it is necessary to address the issue of mutual communication between the city and the citizen and its implementation. The aim of the paper is to design a suitable smart solution that would streamline two-way communication between the city and its citizens. This solution is an urban mobile application, which is also a simple and yet sufficiently effective solution for the transformation of cities into Smart Cities. The main benefit is the implementation of research assessing the requirements of the citizens of a particular city for the services and functions that the application should offer. After analysing the results, a specific urban application design was processed using User Interface and User Interface design. The proposal consists of seven consecutive phases. All phases were completed in solving the design and the result can be seen in the resulting interactive prototype, which was finally tested by authors and random users representing all age categories. The results of the prototype usability tests enabled a gradual improvement of the solution, which culminated in the confirmation of its effectiveness.