Newsletter: “The PEP-NET Summit, 23rd September 2010″

1. January 2007 – 11:38 by John Heaven (TuTech Innovation GmbH)

Dear Reader,

Welcome to another PEP-NET newsletter. This time we have news of the PEP-NET Summit, a €150,000 prize for participation projects, and a few articles from the blog. For more information, read on!

PEP-NET Summit

To further advance eParticipation in Europe, we are organising a unique event that will bring public servants, practitioners, politicians, representatives of grass-roots organisations and academics together to share their knowledge and to kick-start new ideas and initiatives.

To achieve this, we will make use of the connections and relationships built by the Pan European eParticipation Network (PEP-NET) – a network consisting of 56 organisations working on improving democracy in Europe – over the course of the last three years.

As well as hearing speeches from leading thinkers and actors in the field of eParticipation, participants will have plenty of time and space to network with other participants and present their own eParticipation projects.

The day will be moderated by Richard Wilson, founder of Involve and izwe, and focus on three major topics:

- eParticipation in Europe: Aims and achievements

- The Future of eParticipation: Regional, national and international

- Successful eParticipation projects: Reports from the real-world

The event will take place on 23rd September 2010 in Hamburg, Germany and will feature a range of high-level speakers from political bodies, major corporations, and universities. There will be an area where participants can view project presentations in an informal setting and chat to the presenters. We will also be facilitating networking during the breaks, allowing participants to make the most of the day.

Places are limited to 100, so book your free place now on www.pep-net.eu/pep-net-summit. The deadline for bookings is 10^th September, although we expect the event to be booked up by then.

The official Twitter hashtag for the event will be #PEPSUM.

A few articles

Have you checked out the PEP-NET blog recently? Here are just a few articles that you may have missed:

EU consultation on net neutrality

The EU has launched a consultation on “net neutrality”, the question of whether internet providers should be able to differentiate between different types of content that their customers consume and vary the connection speed accordingly.

https://pep-net.eu/blog/2010/07/12/eu-consultation-on-net-neutrality/

Reinhard Mohn Prize

The Bertelsmann Foundation is offering a prize of €150,000 to the best government-supported participation project, especially those that involve normally underrepresented groups. See the blog for full details or go straight to the Reinhard Mohn Prize website.

“Our Budget, Our Economy” and “BürgerForum”

Simone Gerdesmeier wrote about two large scale projects that involve people in an opinion forming process, comparing an American project with one of her own.

https://pep-net.eu/blog/2010/06/29/ourbudgetoureconomyvsbuergerforum/

Montaione Prize

On the subject of prizes, the Regional Government of Tuscany awarding three prizes including €2,000 for the best paper on participatory processes presented by young researches.

https://pep-net.eu/blog/2010/06/12/call-for-submissions-montaione-prize-2010/

PEP-NET Live Chat

PEP-NET successfully conducted its first regular Live Chat last month. You can see detailson the following page as well as a link to the German language original and a translation: click here to see the article.

There will be more Live Chats in the future.

President & Social Media

Rolf Lührs, from TuTech, wrote about the influence of social media on the then German president’s resignation and the subsequent campaign to find a successor: click here to see the article

Future of PEP-NET

PEP-NET’s transition from a project funded by the European Commission to a permanent, sustainable organisation is getting ever nearer. The temporary steering committee met on 18^th and 19^th June in Berlin to hammer out a strategy for the transition based on the results of a survey conducted amongst members and written submissions. On the Friday, everyone had the chance to participate in the meeting via a video conference call.

The next steps will be a further survey based on the new proposed strategy and an online discussion on the form that PEP-NET will take.

More news will follow; in the mean time you can read the article from before the meeting:

https://pep-net.eu/blog/2010/06/12/your-involvement-in-the-future-pep-net/

Conferences

EVOTE 2010, organised by E-Voting.cc, is taking place on 21st July. See https://www.e-voting.cc/ for more information.

Other news

The call for papers for the eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government (JEDEM) has been extended to 21^st July. See the PEP-NET article for full details.

Want to become a PEP-NET member?

Find out how at https://pep-net.eu/becoming-a-member

All the best,