Archive for the ‘members’ Category
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17. August 2010 – 18:32 by Rolf Luehrs
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The calm of Hamburg’s historic Speicherstadt is not usually disturbed by anything more than the chatter of tourists exploring the picturesque surroundings in the sun, or a sprinkling of rain sending ripples across the canals. (Here is a nice video as appetizer).
But on 23rd September 2010, we’re hoping to make waves that spread well beyond the canals of Hamburg to the furthest corners of Europe!
Along with the keynote speeches from the movers and shakers of European eParticipation, we will be hosting 14 half-hour presentations in our presentation corners. That’s a total of seven hours’ presentations of groundbreaking eParticipation projects in an informal atmosphere, where you will be able to move from one presentation to another and discuss with other participants.
As many as four presentations will be running in parallel, allowing you to move from one to the other according to what you find most interesting. It will get loud in there, but that will only add to the lively hustle and bustle and make sure that this is so much more than just another flashy conference.
We’ve got presenters from all across Europe: Germany, Scotland, England, Estonia, Slovakia, Greece, the Netherlands, and Denmark. The topics discussed will range from open government to grass-roots citizen participation in local politics via participatory budgeting. Our presenters themselves are a diverse bunch, in terms of nationality, areas of expertise, and organisations they work for: we’ve got academics like Peter Cruickshank from International Teledemocracy Centre at Edinburgh Napier University, Civil Servants like Hille Hinsberg from the Estonian Cabinet Office, and Dominic Campbell, founder and Director of UK consultancy and social innovation incubator FutureGov. Then there’s Chuck Hirt, of the Central and Eastern European Citizens Network, André Basten and Hanss Christian Lange from the City of Hamburg … and I could go on. Full details will be published soon together with the final agenda at the summit page - so stay tuned!
The PEP-NET Summit is all about participation, and we have really tried hard to keep that in focus: a glance at the agenda will confirm that there will be plenty of time for discussion, whether in the presentation corners, during the question and answer sessions at the end of each keynote session, or at the end of the day when there is an hour dedicated to summarising and discussing what was said. If that isn’t enough networking for you, make sure you come along to the dinner in the evening. Finally, on the following morning we are offering a tour of Hamburg with an eParticipation focus. Look forward to seeing you in Hamburg!
Posted in Events, members | No Comments »
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13. August 2010 – 09:24 by John Heaven (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
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Noella Edelmann, Danube University
Noella Edelmann will be speaking in the section “eParticipation in Europe: Strategic Aims vs. Practical Application” at the PEP-NET Summit on 23rd September 2010 in Hamburg.
Mrs Edelmann is a researcher at the Centre for E-Government at the Danube University, Krems, Austria. Her research focuses on eParticipation, Open Access, internet and psychology, and user experience and has been published in numerous journals.
Mrs Edelmann’s academic career knows no borders, neither physical nor disciplinary: her first degree is in English and Psychology from Strathclyde University and she also boasts an MSc in Organisational Psychology from the University of London. She now focuses on eGovernment: she has an MAS in eGovernment from Danube University and is working towards her PhD in User Experience in E-Particpation.
Mrs Edelmann is the Managing Editor of JEDEM, the Open Access eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government and is responsible for CEDEM, the annual international Conference on eDemocracy, formerly known as EDEM.
The Centre for E-Government’s membership of PEP-NET has been a symbiotic relationship. Mrs Edelmann recruits speakers from the Network’s ranks and is organising a special PEP-NET edition of JEDEM together with the team at the Centre for E-Government. Work with PEP-NET has been able to influence the eParticipation calendar of events in Europe and led to the organisation of PEP-NET workshops held at EDEM and other members’ conferences, most recently the PEP-NET workshop “Best methods for undemocratic participation“. Along with several other PEP-NET members, the Centre is a partner in the EU-funded project “OurSpace”.
The Centre for E-Government is part of the Department of Governance and Public Administration. It conducts research, provides post-graduate programmes and is a competence centre for education in E-Government. Amongst its partners are the Austrian Chancellery and Austrian Federal Computing Centre.
The Centre for E-Government is a founding member of PEP-NET.
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6. August 2010 – 17:28 by Institute for Electronic Participation
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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).
Citizens Participation University 2010 participants @ CEE CN
Simon Delakorda and Csaba Madarász @ CEE CN
Posted in Events, ICT, Tools, Trends, experince, good practice, members | No Comments »
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12. June 2010 – 12:00 by Hans Hagedorn
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PEP-NET will become a new organisation in autumn. The funding period will end and therefore all members — associate and founding — have to decide about their involvement in the future network. There is a concrete proposal from the network coordinator, which was discussed on the last PEP-NET meeting in Krems (see e-mail from John on the 31st of May).
There was both approval and there were also alternative proposals. Thus Francesco Molinari decided to conduct a survey among all members to get a clearer picture of the different interests.
Here are the results of the survey (PDF, 2.5 MB)
There are 3 key conclusions that we leave open for comments and future action:
- Demand: The good response rate (see chapter “Technical Information”) is an indicator that there is a broad interest in the continuation of PEP‐NET. Additionally there is a core of about 10 committed members who are willing to contribute by a considerable amount of money (see analysis of Question #4). This gives a clear signal that there is strong demand for a new PEP‐NET after the end of the EU funded project.
- Supply: Realised networking opportunities during the last years remained below the very high initial expectations (see analysis of Question #4). Therefore, the next discussion should focus particularly on this issue and should try to find answers to the following question: How can we improve networking opportunities for the different member groups?
- Proposals: The survey was the first step to collect concrete proposals from the
members for the design of the new organisation. Thus, we have to analyse the answers to question #8 in more detail. A volunteer could (a) cluster the proposals and comments received into groups and (b) find speaking headlines for each group.
On June the 25th a Temporary Steering Committee will meet in Berlin and will sort the existing proposals. There will be TuTech’s strategy paper as well as hopefully many short or long contributions. They might fit together or might propose alternative directions.
The Temporary Steering Committee will decide about the next steps. They might organise a broad online-debate amoung all members with specific questions arising in the papers, e.g. about the governance structure or the obligatory contributions of members in terms of money or duties. You can take part in the meeting’s video session on Friday, 25th of June at 16:00-17:00 CET. Please e-mail to Daniel (droleff ÄT politik-digital.de) to get the details.
From your perspective: What are your conclusions from the study? What are your proposals for the services of the new organisation, its legal framework and its business model? Please write us any thoughts, short or long! And be aware: If you do not contribute to this crucial discussion, your organisation might suffer, because the memberships might become too expensive or the network might become too lame, or whatever…
You can submit your proposal by e-mail proposal.filter@hanshagedorn.de or leave a comment on this article. Please send your contributions before the 24th of June.
On behalf of the temporary steering committee
Hans Hagedorn
Posted in Events, members | 2 Comments »
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1. June 2010 – 09:38 by Vassilis Goulandris (e-trikala)
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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 »
Posted in good practice, members | No Comments »
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26. May 2010 – 12:24 by Anthony Zacharzewski
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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.
Posted in good practice, members | No Comments »
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19. May 2010 – 09:16 by John Heaven (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
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Photo of Robert Krimmer
When Britons went to vote in the General Election on 6th May, some of them were locked out of the polling booths and were not able to cast their votes. An article on the PublicTechnology website suggested that eVoting could be the answer to this problem, and should be given another chance.
I spoke to Robert Krimmer - Director and Founder of the Competence Center for Electronic Voting in Austria and a founding member of PEP-NET - to find out whether he agreed.
John Heaven: Hi Robert. What is E-Voting.cc, and what do you mean by eVoting?
Robert Krimmer: E-Voting.cc is an Austrian Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) that fosters the development of eVoting. We deal with any type of eVoting - whether electronic machines in polling booths, internet voting, voting through cash machines, mobile phone voting. The important thing is that the act of casting a vote is done electronically.
JH: So does that include the punch-card system that is used in the United States?
RK: No, that is not included because the votes are counted electronically but not cast electronically. We use the Council of Europe’s definition of eVoting.
JH: You have heard about the problems that UK voters had last week: there were complaints about voters queuing for hours only to be turned away at 10pm. Could eVoting have solved this problem, as discussed in a recent PublicTechnology article?
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Interview, Trends, experince, members | No Comments »
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17. May 2010 – 10:14 by John Heaven (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
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Photo of Chuck Hirt
I spoke to Chuck Hirt, from the Central and Eastern European Citizens’ Network (CEECN, a member of PEP-NET) about eParticipation in Central and Eastern Europe. Chuck says that eParticipation along Western European lines is “science fiction” in C&E Europe. On the other hand, people who visit the region are often “inspired by the spirit, energy and enthusiasm” there.
John Heaven: Hi Chuck. Please tell me a bit about CEECN.
Chuck Hirt: The Central and Eastern European Citizens Network gives grass-roots citizens organisations the opportunity to work together, share ideas, and enhance their organisational growth. It started by bringing together staff and citizens from a few organisations across Central and Eastern Europe, who found the meetings really helpful - if anything, just to gain inspiration and energy to take home and continue the struggle.
We found out that several of us were funded by a US donor organisation, the Charles Stewart Mott foundation. They said they would be happy to promote this activity, but asked that we included organisations from further away in the east. We were happy to do this, and our members now come from 19 different countries.
The network is going strong, and we are celebrating our tenth anniversary this year. We are just making preparations for a Citizens’ Participation University. At the moment we are doing some research into the state of participation to act as a base line.
JH: What is the key to the network’s success?
CH: The network was a good place for exchanging stories and experience, putting on training from the start and particularly running a conference every two years. But things started taking off as we began to find way to become proactive and institute events like “Citizen Participation Week”. This was a lot of hard work but gave us a focus. This was quite an exciting moment.
JH: What achievements does CEECN have to its name?
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Interview, Uncategorized, Visions, experince, members | No Comments »
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17. May 2010 – 09:42 by Centre for E-Government
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Special Issue in collaboration with PEP-NET: Sustainable eParticipation
Issue 3/ September 2010
In collaboration with the European Network for eParticipation (http://pep-net.eu/), the Centre for E-Government at the Danube University Krems invites you to submit an article for the third issue of the eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government (JeDEM).
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
Read the rest of this entry »
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3. May 2010 – 16:02 by John Heaven (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
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(Photo by Faungg on Flickr.com)
I enjoyed reading these articles and websites related to eParticipation from across Europe. If you have any more, by all means link to them in the comments!
Waltzing Matilda, the European Commission: The European Commission has launched a new blog that aims to gather views on how it should be using social media like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook etc.. “Waltzing Matilda“, as the blog is called, was launched on 19th April. Waltzing Matilda is just one of many blogs on the blogs.europa.eu platform, which also hosts some European Commissioners’ blogs.
“Man muss seine Energie nicht in Twitter stecken“, der Freitag: In an interview with the German weekly der Freitag about online election campaigning, Thilo von Pape, Communication Studies specialist, said “There’s no need to invest your energy in Twitter”. He said it is unlikely that online elections campaigns along the lines of Barack Obama’s will be seen in Germany: “Politicians should just accept that Germans aren’t the same as Americans.”
ePractice.eu Editor’s Choice, WeGov: PEP-NET members the Napier University, the Hansard Society and Gov2U are involved in a project called “WeGov”, which is currently the Editor’s Choice on ePractice.eu. The three-year project involves partners from the UK, Belgium, Germany and Greece and seeks to develop new tools to allow policy-makers to interact with citizens.
Flashvote project, ePractice.eu: The French City of Bordeaux organised a “flash vote”: in a spontaneous public event lasting less than ten minutes and including a dance routine, youngsters were asked to vote on a number of issues. They were able to vote on a 17-point agenda by text message and using the internet on mobile devices. The project cost, according to ePractice.eu, was in the € 1,000-5,000 bracket.
Posted in Projects, Uncategorized, members | No Comments »
