Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
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27. August 2010 – 12:26 by POLITECH
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Argument visualisation might not be seen as a suitable tool for eParticipation at first sign. However, when properly deployed, it can serve as a useful tool for eParticipation projects, where citizens can engage in stimulating brainstorming, exchange of information and knowledge, as well as in active involvement on the issues in interest.
An example of such deployment of an argument visualisation tool in an eParticipation project can be found in the WAVE Project. WAVE aims to improve the inclusiveness and transparency of EU decision making at the national and European level by using highly integrated, state-of-the-art argument visualisation techniques to make the impact of complex EU environmental legislation on climate change more accessible and easy to understand for citizens, special interest groups and decision makers alike.
WAVE has deployed Debategraph as an innovative argument visualisation platform, in a multi-lingual, cross border context. The project has launched 3 pilot websites in the UK, France and Lithuania where the tool is being tested and where the citizens engage in stimulating discussions on the environmental issues relevant to their countries and local communities. Each pilot has its own portal and argument visualisation mans in the national language, making it possible for every citizen to actively engage in the discussions.
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25. August 2010 – 14:27 by POLITECH
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MOMENTUM launched in January 2008 and was designed to last for 30 months (until the end of July 2010). The Project aimed to monitor the existing and on coming eParticipation projects co-funded by European Commission, to consolidate their results and to provide feedback to them and to the respective EC bodies and other designated stakeholders, advancing the high-level political and institutional engagement.
MOMENTUM was acting as a support action to the ongoing eParticipation Projects funded in 3 rounds. Until the end of MOMENTUM’s activities, 2 rounds of projects have completed their actions. The last round of projects funded under the 2008 call will finish their activities at the end of 2010.
Despite MOMENTUM reaching its conclusion, the website will be kept online for anyone wishing to use the resources available there.
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23. August 2010 – 16:25 by POLITECH
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WAVE will participate at the 2nd International eParticipation Conference that will be held between 31 August and 2 September 2010 in Lausanne, Switzerland (http://www.demo-net.org/epart).
Specifically, the first day of the conference WAVE organises a workshop titled “On the Use of Argument Visualisation Tools to support Policy Formulation”. Apart from presentations and discussion, hands-on exercise on the WAVE platform will also be offered during the workshop for elaborating on EU policies relevant to climate change.
Moreover, the second day of the conference a scientific article on WAVE’s technical details will be presented. The article’s title is “Integrating Argument Visualisation Tools in Social Platforms to Facilitate Online Political Debates: The WAVE Platform” and is authored by the following members of WAVE consortium: Deirdre Lee, Yojana Priya, David Price, Efthimios Tambouris, Vassilios Peristeras and Konstantinos Tarabanis.
Visit WAVE Project’s website www.wave-project.eu
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20. August 2010 – 17:01 by Fraser Henderson - ICELE
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The European Citizens’ Initiative is plagued with implementation challenges, particularly in terms of the digital domain. Thankfully there’s already a bunch of people and projects who are making sense of these - not least the EC funded EuroPetition project.
Hence, in an attempt to bring all this knowledge (and information) into one place, a new group and website has been assembled:-
YourECI website
The Digital ECI is an important aspect of the ECI and this is an opportunity for practitioners in the field of eParticipation to demonstrate that they can add value based on current best practice.
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20. August 2010 – 12:16 by Olga Lacigova - 21c
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The Kingdom of Bahrain has recently moved from 42 to 13 on United Nation’s 2010 Global eGovernment Survey and is keen to build on this achievement through their upcoming five year strategy. To design the most effective approach, the Bahraini key eGovernment Authority representatives have asked 21c Consultancy to host a Study Tour to meet with leading UK figures involved with implementing eGovernment.
For the 17th and 18th of June 2010 21c has arranged personal meetings with high dignitaries within the UK ICT central and local departments starting on the 17th with a presentation by the Deputy CIO at the UK Cabinet Office on the UK eGovernment Strategy followed by a visit to the Local Government Information Unit where the Head of Children and Social Services, presented their approach to Web 2.0 and Service Delivery. The delegation had also a chance to visit the Department of Health and learn about the NHS Choices programme and meet Bob Gann the department’s Head of Strategy & Engagement.
The second day was devoted to local government strategy and the delegation travelled to Kent County Council to visit the leading centres for innovation in digital service delivery. The delegation was introduced to a wide array of award-wining digital initiatives, including Kent TV and ‘Pic n’ Mix’ Innovation.
The entire delegation found the information and knowledge presented enriching for the development of the Bahraini eGA 2011-14 strategy.
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17. August 2010 – 15:50 by Olga Lacigova - 21c
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The OurSpace project, selected as one of the top proposals from the last ICT PSP call, has officially kicked off on the 23rd of July in Athens. The meeting was organised on the premises of NTUA by the project coordinator – the Athens Technology Centre – who will lead the OurSpace consortium for the next 3 years.
OurSpace plans to create a unique online collaboration space designed to actively engage young European citizens in the moulding of their future society. The platform will incorporate all the latest social media tools and applications and will be designed with help of the end-users themselves to ensure high attractiveness and usability of the platform.
The project success will not depend only on the technical delivery of the platform but mainly on the high participation rate of the end-users and OurSpace consortium has on board partners such as UK Youth Parliament, Café Babel Magazine or Google Ireland with links to millions of young people from Europe so we all hope that OurSpace will be a success story!
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23. July 2010 – 10:43 by Evika
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Add Me! is a pan European network bringing together into a common framework and learning environment the different social and institutional organisations that support or can support disadvantaged groups in becoming major beneficiaries of public services to which they are entitled. In this context, three main groups of people are being addressed: elderly poor and retired seniors; youngsters not in education, employment and training (NEET), and non-EU teenagers that are integrating into a local community with their families or by themselves; individual civil servants from small or medium size local governments, mainly those administrations that do not pertain to large metropolitan areas and suffer the digital divide. The network is formed by a relevant number of organisations from 8 European countries interested in building a strong network to empower organisations working on daily basis with disadvantaged groups in the use of government services that make use of the information and communication technologies
You are all invited to join us at
http://www.epractice.eu/community/addmecommunity
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12. July 2010 – 09:35 by John Heaven (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
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Photo by squirmelia on Flickr.com
The European Commission started its consultation on net neutrality the other week, which it promised as part of its Digital Agenda for Europe. According to the document,
“Concerns have been raised that the openness of the internet, and therefore its benefits to society and the economy, may be undermined if network operators seek to treat traffic differently, for example on the basis of its origin, destination, the type of service or content that is being transmitted, or other criteria.”
Written comments and questions can be submitted until 3oth September 2010. Of particular interest to PEP-NET readers will be the very short section 4.5, “The political, cultural and social dimension.” Question 15 asks “… are there any other concerns affecting freedom of expression, media pluralism and cultural diversity on the internet?”
The paper describes two models for a future internet: the current “best efforts” model, where traffic is largely routed as quickly as possible under the circumstances but with no cast-iron guarantee of service quality, against a managed network whereby customers would be able to pay a fee to get a guaranteed service quality or buy packages that guarantee higher speeds for information and services from certain sources. Some examples of a managed network seem fair enough, and exist already: prioritising voice calls over data in order to ensure everyone has a working telephone; prioritising critical applications like emergency services over every-day use.
In my opinion, differentiating between what people use the internet for beyond that is problematic. Even the argument that some applications, say watching high-definition video, require more bandwidth than others is dubious because surely it is possible for a service-provider to allocate a certain amount of bandwidth to each customer so that the customer can decide what to use it for?
But my main concern is that — even in a competitive environment, where no service provider has a monopoly — non-neutrality could continue to tighten the screw on an internet that is already criticised for being an echo chamber: for example on Twitter, it is all too easy to follow people you agree with and unfollow people whose views you dislike; another example is the self-reinforcing effect of product suggestions based on customer profiles on sites like Amazon and Genius on iTunes. They are great for finding things that you will probably like, but not necessarily for broadening your horizons.
So imagine if you had the choice: a cheap internet package with fast, reliable access to the news websites you read anyway, or a more expensive one with reliable access to everything. This could mean a future internet that is more about getting access to things you already like rather than broadening one’s horizons and opening oneself up to new ideas an influences.
What do you think? Is net neutrality relevant to eParticipation on the ground, or is it more of a technical issue that doesn’t affect the average Joe?
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9. July 2010 – 16:11 by Dorothee Ruetschle (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
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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
Posted in Projects, TuTech, Uncategorized, Visions, experince, good practice, open data | No Comments »
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8. July 2010 – 14:54 by John Heaven (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
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Photo by fRandi-Shooters on Flickr.com
The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and TuTech Innovation GmbH are pleased to announce the PEP-NET Summit, bringing public servants, practitioners, politicians, representatives of grass-roots organisations and academics together to share their knowledge and to kick-start new ideas and initiatives.
Taking place in Hamburg on 23rd September 2010, participation is free and tickets will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. Find out how to register for the free Summit on the dedicated PEP-NET Summit page. Richard Wilson (founder of Involve and izwe) will moderate the conference, there will be a high-carat line-up of speakers, and you will have a chance to present your project and talk to others about their projects in an informal setting.
We will organise a meal on the evening of the conference and, on the day after the conference, a guided tour of Hamburg which will take in some sites where eParticipation projects have made a mark. (Both of these will be at participants’ own expense.) Hamburg is a beautiful city in Autumn so it is worth staying a little longer.
Keep an eye on the dedicated PEP-NET Summit page, as we will be updating it with full details of the agenda and speakers as the date approaches.
Whether you stay for the guided tour or not, take advantage of this one-off opportunity. There are only one-hundred places, so make sure you are on board!
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