Archive for the ‘good practice’ Category

E-participation & E-democracy workshop - Citizens Participation University 2010

6. August 2010 – 17:28 by Institute for Electronic Participation

E-participation & E-democracy workshop was organized as a part of the Citizens Participation University 2010 which took place from 20th to 24th of July in the Civil College in Kunszentmiklós-Kunbábony (Hungary).

10 NGOs representatives and activists from Armenia, Belgium, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, Poland and Romania attended the workshop.

Participants were introduced with E-participation / E-democracy concept, political documents of the Council of Europe relating to eDemocracy, current e-participation developments in Central and Eastern Europe and different e-participation tools as well as good practices. The second part of the workshop facilitated open discussion about opportunities for involving e-participation tools into current and future civil society projects in the region.

The workshop was lead by Mr. Csaba Madarász (e-democracy expert and consultant, Hungary) and Mr. Simon Delakorda, M.Sc. (Institute for Electronic Participation, Slovenia)

Citizens Participation University 2010 was organized by the Civil College Foundation and Central and Eastern European Citizens Network (CEE CN).

Csaba Madarász and Simon Delakorda

Workshop presentations:
1. eParticipation in the CEE: NGO’s perspective (pdf, 4,10 mb).

E-participation & E-democracy workshop - Citizens Participation University 2010
Citizens Participation University 2010 participants @ CEE CN

Simon Delakorda and Csaba Madarász
Simon Delakorda and Csaba Madarász @ CEE CN



PEP-NET Summit: ePartizipation diskutieren - fördern - weiterentwickeln

9. July 2010 – 16:11 by Dorothee Ruetschle (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
Photo by fRandi-Shooters on Flickr.com

Photo by fRandi-Shooters on Flickr.com

Europas Netzwerk für ePartizipation PEP-NET - Pan European eParticipation Network - lädt am 23. September 2010 in die historische Speicherstadt der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg ein. Im Mittelpunkt der von Richard Wilson, dem Begründer von Involve and izwe, moderierten eintägigen Veranstaltung steht das Thema Online-Bürgerbeteiligung - ePartizipation.

Beleuchtet werden insbesondere die Facetten
- ePartizipation in Europa: strategische Ziele vs. Umsetzung
- Die Zukunft der ePartizipation: regional, national und international
- Vorzeigeprojekte der ePartizipation: Berichte aus dem Praxisfeld

Die internationale Tagung ist für die Bedürfnisse von Vertretern aus Verwaltung, Wissenschaft, Wirtschaft und Bürgerorganisationen konzeptioniert. Gerade in Zeiten knapper Kassen stehen verschiedene Ausprägungen der ePartizipation, wie Bürgerhaushalte, die Beteiligung der Bürger an Gesetzgebungsverfahren, Open Data, Bürgerbeteiligung in der Politikfeldgestaltung, cooperative government und Transparenz bei Kommunen, Ländern und Nationen auf der Agenda. PEP-NET widmet sich der Förderung der ePartizipation und schafft mit der Veranstaltung eine besondere Plattform für einen intensiven Austausch, weiterführende Diskussionen und anregende Gespräche mit hochrangigen Persönlichkeiten.

PEP-NET freut sich besonders, die Teilnahme beitragsfrei anbieten zu können. Eine Anmeldung für die limitierte Veranstaltung ist ab sofort über die Online-Registrierung unter http://pep-net.eu/pep-net-summit/ möglich.

Der offizielle Hashtag für die Veranstaltung ist #PEPSUM



Call for nomination for the 10 Who Are Changing the World of Politics & the Internet

7. July 2010 – 08:59 by Eric Legale
PoliticsOnline and the World eGov Forum are proud to open the call for nominations of the Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics. For the eleventh year in a row, PoliticsOnline subscribers and visitors from around the world will help select the top 10 individuals, organizations and companies having the greatest impact on the way the Internet is changing politics.

Submit your nominations now

The winners will be invited as honored guests to the 11th World eDemocracy Forum October 13-15, 2010, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, (Paris, France), where they’ll take part in an awards ceremony and other special programs throughout the two-day forum.

This prestigious award seeks to recognize the innovators and pioneers - those who blaze new e-political trails everyday, the dreamers and doers who bring democracy online. But we need your help to nominate honorees. If you know of someone or something deserving recognition, send in your nomination today.

Criteria:

  • Highly effective leaders who are making outstanding e-political and e-governmental achievements
  • Forward thinking organizations that have led the way in this revolution
  • Innovative ideas or strategies that have forever changed the political process

You can submit a nomination by filling out the form here, asking for a brief statement (200 words or less) describing the person and or institution, and why they deserve recognition. Be sure to include all necessary reference info and URLs.

A “Top 10 nominee list” will be published July 9, from which voters will be asked to select the final top 10.

Submit your nominations now



“Our Budget, Our Economy” and “BürgerForum” – two large-scale strategies to involve people in an opinion forming process

29. June 2010 – 10:55 by Simone Gerdesmeier

One of the major tasks the organizers of eParticipation projects face is designing workflows to bring thousands of people together in one online discussion - especially when the aim is not only to deliberate about a specific topic, but to produce concrete and useful outcomes. Two projects in America and Germany try to reach out to citizens all over the nation, using two very different approaches: In the US, “Our Budget, our Economy”, organized by AmericaSpeaks, and in Germany, the BürgerForum, initiated by the Bertelsmann Stiftung and Heinz Nixdorf Stiftung and conducted with the help of Zebralog Hagedorn.

“Our Budget, Our Economy” has reached its peak with a series of live events, so called Town Meetings, all over the USA on June 26th.  Here, approximately 3,500 participants have discussed about the federal budget and worked out a message, saying which reforms they find to be most important. As the organizers announced, the project should help the participants to “weigh-in on the difficult choices necessary to put our federal budget on a sustainable path.”

We at Zebralog are currently working on the third edition of the BürgerForum, an online-discussion forum dedicated to produce the so called citizen agenda. In 2011, about 10,000 German citizens are going to join the discussion about the growing diversity in Germany’s society. Read the rest of this entry »



€150k for the world’s best inclusion project: the Reinhard Mohn Prize 2011

28. June 2010 – 12:16 by John Heaven (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
vitalizing

Screenshot of vitalizing-democracy.org

As football fans worldwide roar at their televisions, the German Bertelsmann Stiftung is kicking off another prize with arguably more at stake than the World Cup. Has your project found new ways of involving underrepresented citizens? If so, you could be in with a chance of winning the Reinhard Mohn Prize 2011, with prize money of € 150,000!

If you know of a project run by a governmental organisation that deserves to win the Reinhard Mohn Prize 2011, simply visit vitalizing-democracy.org by 22nd August to nominate it. You can also discuss projects that have been submitted so far. By the following phase, which lasts until 6th October 2010, 20 projects will have been selected and you can continue to discuss them on the website. This will be followed by a public consultation before the prize is presented in June 2011 in Gütersloh, Germany. The person who nominates the winning project will be invited to the award ceremony. Read the rest of this entry »



Extended CFP: Sustainable eParticipation

17. June 2010 – 15:19 by Centre for E-Government

JeDEM compactExtended Call  For Papers - eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government (JeDEM)
Issue 3/ September 2010

Special Issue in Collaboration with
PEP-NET: Sustainable eParticipation

Guest Editors

  • Rolf Luehrs (PEP-NET, TuTech Innovation GmbH, D)
  • Francesco Molinari (SmartIntuitions Ltd., CY)

The eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government addresses the theory and practice in the areas of eDemocracy and Open Government as well as eGovernment, eParticipation, eDeliberation and eSociety. The aim is to impact the quality, visibility, efficiency and use of research and work in eDemocracy, Open Government and related fields.

Call for Papers

The past decade has seen a significant increase in the number, variety and quality of eParticipation trials, particularly in Western and Southern European countries. The impulse of the European Parliament and the financial support by the Commission have been instrumental in establishing a pan-European community of practice, made up of academia, governments and solution providers from virtually all EU Member States.

Read the rest of this entry »



e-participation tips from e-trikala

1. June 2010 – 09:38 by Vassilis Goulandris (e-trikala)

e-trikala is the official spin-off corporate entity owned by the City of Trikala in Greece. Through e-trikala’s work, the City of Trikala is recognized as the pioneer and leader of ICTs in local government in Greece today. The City continuously expands its broadband and fiber optic network (36 km) infrastructure which at this point connects all municipal buildings, authorities, organizations, schools etc, and the free-of-charge wi-fi access to the internet (34 wi-fi nodes) for all households, businesses and city visitors. It also implements novel projects like intelligent transportation systems, innovative e-health services for citizens, an integrated remote citizens’ complaint service, a tourist information platform featuring PDAs - and eventually RFID technology - and many others in the pipeline.

The e-trikala company is empowered with the strategic direction and the adoption of ICTs for the city itself but also collaborates with other local authorities, to transfer know-how and implement new technology solutions for e-enabled services and e-government and serve wider agendas like health, tourism, culture etc. Moreover, the company has initiated an ambitious venture called “Cities Net” which connects 11 cities under a commonly shared vision for next generation e-enabled local authorities’ and citizens’ service. Read the rest of this entry »



Democratic engagement can save money for local government

26. May 2010 – 12:24 by Anthony Zacharzewski

Two UK-based PEP-NET associates have collaborated on a white paper considering whether local government can save money through democratic engagement.

The paper, Democracy Pays, has been produced by the Democratic Society in association with Public-I Ltd., and looks at examples of cost-saving democratic innovations from the UK and the rest of the world.

Its conclusion is that democratic engagement, whether online or off, can produce significant savings through better targeting of services, and stronger oversight of public expenditure.

The paper can be download in PDF format (16 pages) here.



Improving the future of Pep-net

17. May 2010 – 09:45 by Civil College

During the last member meeting of Pep-net in Krems, we have made several statements about the future perspectives of Pep-net and the paths, how we should get there. A common point of view, that members have shared collectively during the meeting that we need good leadership to the path as well, how we plan to formulate future Pep-net. I am recommending two opinions for designing and planning our common future.

The first one is a connecting discussion in a LinkedIn group:

What are for practitioners the key aspects of good governance and management practices (particularly for NPOs).
Imagine you get suddenly involved in a new NPO, what are for you the fist aspects or characteristics to look at to get an idea whether they are “best-in-class” or rather “not at al best-in-class”? In fact, what is your ’short check list’ to get your first impression?

The group discussion contains several key document links, which can help to formulate an opinion about an organization’s state of management.

The other one is a book, that I strongly recommend to all readers - if you have not read the great book Leadership from Below from Trond Arne Undheim, which is giving a great perspective, how to lead an organization, from below of yourself.

leadership_From_belowHappy Monday to all readers!



European Citizens Initiative: The toothless tiger - Livestreaming EU Parliament

12. May 2010 – 13:53 by Civil College
What can e-dentist do?

What can e-dentists do?

After the Salzburg consultation on the ECI initiative, today in Bruxelles the ECI continues on.

There are several questions still open on finding the balanced way of supporting ECI from the Commission and the countries - current versions are putting to much on the shoulders of the future initiative organizers - Carsten Berg, ECI coordinator called for action recently on the ECI blog.
There are several issues, which I think personally, calling the e-government and e-participation community into action.
More coming soon..
here is the program:

Livestream: Hearing European Parliament - Brussels:

http://www.greenmediabox.eu/live/eci/

Wednesday 12 May 2010 14:30-18:00

Introductions:

14.30

  • Rebecca Harms, Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group of the European Parliament

14:35

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

  • Prof. Jürgen Meyer, Former member of the German Bundestag as well as of the Convention on the Future of Europe and the Convention on the Charter of Fundamental Rights
  • Maroš Šefčovič, Vice-President of the European Commission, responsible for Inter-Institutional Relations and Administration
  • Bruno Kaufmann, Director of the Initiative & Referendum Institute Europe (IRI)
  • Gerald Häfner,Coordinator of the Green/EFA group in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and member of the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament

15:15

OPEN DISCUSSION

Introduction of the questions by Gerald Häfner

  • How representative shall a European Citizens’ Initiative be and what should be the minimum number of Member States? (Art.7)
  • Which rules and procedures should be established for the collection and verification of signatures? (Art. 5, 6, 9, 12, 14)
  • Which rules shall apply for checking the admissibility of an ECI?(Art. 4, 8)
  • How should European institutions respond to a successful ECI? (Art. 11)
  • Do ECI organisers need support for setting up an initiative?

17:30

CONCLUSIONS AND FOLLOW-UP

  • Eva Lichtenberger, Vice-President of the Greens/EFA in the European Parliament
  • Isabelle Durant, Vice-President of the European Parliament and Member of the Greens/EFA in the European Parliament
  • Gerald Häfner, Coordinator of the Green/EFA group in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and member of the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament