Open City Workshop: Building Community through Open Information


 

Who: Community leaders, academics, students, technology enthusiasts, political advocates, and public sector employees.

What: The Open City Workshop included a number of activities, both participatory and educational.

Where: Alberta Art Gallery, 2 Sir Winston Churchill Square and online via webcast

Why: To explore possibilities, discuss concerns, share successes and lessons, connect, and build a shared understanding of Gov 2.0.

On March 6, 2010, the City of Edmonton hosted the Open City Workshop to bring together community leaders, academics, students, technology enthusiasts and public sector employees to explore and advance the role of Open Information in Alberta's capital region. They discussed current and planned activities in Edmonton and other Canadian and international jurisdictions as well as possibilities for government, community, academic and private organisations.

On November 21, 2009 the City of Edmonton hosted an Open Data Workshop, primarily targeted at the technology community. The consultation and feedback from the workshop influenced the design of our open data catalogue and set the stage for this event. This time it was all about collaboration and community; working together to develop and establish our local context for an Open City built on access to Open Information. The participants worked to define the next steps for open data and an application catalogue and explore additional Gov 2.0 concepts such as Social Media, Open Systems and 3D Virtual Communities.

Special Guests David Eaves, Mark Kuznicki and Nicholas Charney participated in a panel discussion on the topic of Government as a Platform.

Please click on the button below to let us know you plan on attending either in person or online.

Special Guests

David Eaves is an expert in public policy, open systems and collaboration. David advises the mayor of Vancouver on open government and open data. He also serves as a consultant to other governments and publishes on the topic frequently including most recently a chapter in the O'Reilly Media book Open Government

Mark Kuznicki works at the intersection of technology, open government and social innovation and is applying open source and participatory approaches to engage citizens and connect communities. Mark helped launch the ChangeCamp community in 2009 focused on "reimagining government and citizenship in the age of participation" and advised the City of Toronto on the launch of Toronto.ca/open

Nicholas Charney is a public servant who blogs unofficially on public service renewal and government 2.0. He frequently presents on the use of social media in government and employee engagement. Nick was an organizer for ChangeCamp Ottawa.

Objectives

  • To position Edmonton as a leader in the conversation about the potential benefits and opportunities provided by Open Data
  • To host a community conversation about the definition and value of Open Data, Gov 2.0 and Open Government for various groups
    • To consider how government can act as a platform for collaboration between residents, orders of government, and organisations
    • To consider how citizens can participate in government operations and decisions
    • To consider how government can improve transparency and access to information and data
  • To explore methods for continuing the community conversation on Open Data and Gov 2.0

For more information:

Email opendata@edmonton.ca
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