In November the EU ministerial conference will take place in Malmo, Sweden (Sweden currently is the EU chair). One of the things on the agenda there is setting the EU’s strategy for e-government for the next 5 years, until 2015. A number of people [LINK], including myself, think it is very much needed that our voice is heard there. Us being those familiar with what the internet and related technology make possible, and seeing that our governments still struggle to grasp the meaning of that and therefore pass up opportunities.
In the past months a lot of work has been done to crowdsource a declaration stressing the importance of open public service information (PSI). It is the product of both on-line discussion and face to face sessions (like the EUPS2.0 workshop in Brussels and at the Reboot conference in Copenhagen). The result will actually be presented at and during the ministerial conference in Malmo (that in itself is already an achievement, thanks to David Osimo). Those of you that know my involvement with Open Government Data will see why I wholeheartedly support that declaration. To be able to get the most out of the few minutes that the attention of the ministerial conference will be focussed on this declaration, it is important that as many people as possible show they support this initiative.
You can show that support by signing the Open Declaration on EU Public Service Information.
For the sake of transparent processes in public governance, and to strengthen our participatory democracies,
for the sake of you and me being able to build decisions on all available information, thus empowering ourselves,
for the sake of increasing innovative potential confronting the complex problems our EU nations face in terms of climate, economy and energy,
I ask you to sign the declaration.
It only takes a minute, so click and add your name to the list.
Signing the declaration will not solve any of the world’s problems, but it will help to make sure one of the building blocks (open PSI) we need to work towards actual solutions will be more readily available to us all. Otherwise we will be 5 years along the road.