The AIIM (Association for Information and Image Management) Ottawa chapter organised an event "Open Government. Will it be Transformative?". The opening speaker covered the national Open Government Action Plan, followed by talks about the City of Ottawa's open data initiative and how open source lessons and licensing might apply to the open data world.
The Plenary speaker was Stephen Walker, Senior Director, IM Division, Treasury Board Secretariat. He is the lead on the Open Government Action Plan. Contact him at [email protected] or +1 (613) 946-3052.
You can find Canada's commitments to the international Open Government Partnership (OGP) at http://www.opengovpartnership.org/countries/canada
The other portal for information about Canada's open government initiatives is the site open.gc.ca
As part of membership in the OGP the Government of Canada has detailed specific initiatives in Canada's Action Plan on Open Government. Stephen Walker emphasised that civil society has a key role to play in monitoring Canada's progress, and that in fact civil society participation is built into the OGP. One of the key tests of the OGP will be to what extent its partner members are able to deliver on their action plan commitments next year.
Stephen Walker presented a detailed slide deck "Canada's Action Plan on Open Government" (in Canadian government style, the presentation is available in both a complete English version and a complete French version). Hopefully it will be available online from AIIM and at open.gc.ca, otherwise you could contact him directly for a copy.
The other speakers were Rob Giggey, the City of Ottawa's lead on open data, and Thomas Prowse, an Ottawa tech lawyer with deep experience in the legal issues related to open source.
The City of Ottawa's short links to its initiatives are ottawa.ca/opendata and ottawa.ca/donneesouvertes
There is a partner civil society group (of which I am a member): Open Data Ottawa.
It was recently announced that the city will hold a second contest to develop applications, analysis and visualisations using its open data but there is no budget for prizes this time. They are looking for sponsors to provide funding. Contact Rob Giggey if you are interested in sponsoring.
Twitter:
- Stephen Walker @sbwalker61
- Rob Giggey @rob_giggey
- Thomas Prowse @tprowse
- Open Data Ottawa @opendataottawa
- Hashtag was #aiimyow
Here is a Storify of tweets (mostly mine) from the event. There are many additional links embedded in the tweets.
Comments