Jared Ford
ICT Programs
demworks.org | @jdeepford | [email protected]
Citizen Technology & Open Government
Democracy Technology
• Goals
Promote efficient, open & accountable government
Strengthen democratic institutions (Parties & CSOs)
Advance citizen engagement, open political space
• Evolution
Citizen Political Technology
Democratization of content production and dissemination.
Shareable, user-generated content (platforms)
Allows mobilizing populations, organizing events, sharing information, and consolidating messaging.
Influences the dynamics of power and behavior of citizens, elected officials, and government institutions
Social Media
Arab Spring
• Social media played a central role in shaping political debates
• An increase in online revolutionary conversations often preceded major events on the ground.
• Social media helped spread democratic ideas across international borders. pitpi.org
Political Process Monitoring
• Citizen oversight of democratic governance
• Election monitoring, participatory budgeting, legislative tracking
• Tools which collect, analyze and share information
afghanistanelectiondata.org
istinomer.rs
votainteligente.cl
Implications for Open Government
• All countries must build democratic institutions that accommodate the new role of citizen technologies.
• OGP (Criteria = Engagement, Access to Information)
• eGov to We-GOV
Open Government Data
• Open governmental data becomes better data via input from the public.
• Citizen-oriented tools are crucial to ensuring a vibrant online and offline public sphere
• Social media allows governments to reach vast networks of people at once and defray costs.
(transparency-initiative.org)
Open governmental data becomes better data via input from the public
recovery.gov
Ensure a vibrant online and offline public sphere
www.ferizbori.mk/poddrzete-ne
Reach vast networks of people at once and defray costs.
• Inec.org
inecnigeria.org
Recommendations
• Documents should be structured (data.gov/semantic)
• Multiple forms of access must be provided (mkssindia.org)
• Single-point portal (data.gov.uk)
• All data should be Cloud-based (socrata.com)
Documents should be structured with semantic mark-up
data.gov/semantic
Multiple forms of access
mkssindia.org
Single-point portal
data.gov.uk
All data should be Cloud-based
socrata.com
How can we address citizen demand?
Jared Ford, ICT Programs
demworks.org | @jdeepford | [email protected]