Co-designing government

By Laurence Millar | 12 March 2010 | Permanent link | 0 comments

Today I attended my first global virtual conference on Gov2.0. There were more than 300 participants from around the world (all virtual) including Mexico, USA, Australia, Canada, Spain, Brazil, Israel, UK, India, Singapore, Taiwan, the Netherlands, Lebanon, Georgia, Romania and Kuwait. The conference had five great speakers:

1. David Eaves from Canada
   David talked about open government data; of particular note is Vancouver where the city has passed regulations covering free sharing of open and accessible data, rapid implementation of open standards, and adoption of open source software on an equal footing with commercial systems. The presentation contained many examples of innovation at the city, provincial and national level, including GCPedia, a collaborative work tool for federal employees. David also talked about the economic value of providing government-held data for free.

2. Joel Whittaker from the US Institute for Peace
   This presentation had a particular focus on the use of Gov2.0 and mobile technology in post-conflict countries. Joel made the point that in a lot of developing countries the level of mobile phone access is significantly higher than internet availability and the use of mobile phones provide an infrastructure for government information and services with huge coverage of the population. It’s worth noting that according to the latest ITU report published at the end of February, there are now an estimated 4.6 billion mobile cellular subscriptions (750 million in China and 480 million in India). Mobile cellular penetration in developing countries is estimated at 57 per 100 inhabitants, doubling since 2005.

3. Yaron Gamburg from the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
   Yaron spoke of the importance of bottom-up and top-down as a implementation strategy for Gov2.0 and included a great video on the introduction of internet technology to senior officials.

4. Kate Lundy from Australia
   Senator Kate Lundy has been a leading global figure in this area. She sponsored the Public Sphere consultation process and led by example using Gov2.0 tools to create Gov2.0 policy. Kate spoke about three major initiatives in Australia - the National Broadband Network, the Digital Education Revolution, and Gov2.0 - involving citizen centric services, collaboration with citizens to co-design government and facilitating innovation through open data and open source.

5. Dominic Campbell from London
   Dominic summed up the current situation - the UK got here first, the US brought sexy back, and now we are all copying the big stuff and innovating the small stuff.

All the presenters gave examples and web sites showing the use of Gov2.0 and open data. The presentations will shortly be on the conference site, and the transcript of the chatroom during the three-hour conference, which includes a number of useful links, is also online. There is also a world index of open government data; if you have open government data in your jurisdiction, register it here.

As well as the outstanding material presented and the discussions that took place during the three hour conference, I was excited by this unique opportunity to link with people around the world. Colleagues looking at the same issues, facing the same challenges, and sharing stories about how to introduce Gov2.0 and open data into their own organisation.

I would encourage you to attend the next one. It costs nothing but your time.