Wednesday’s #DCWEEK sessions focused upon government and nonprofit web 2.0 integrations.
Hosted at the United Methodist Church Conference Facility, over 1,000 guests were expected at concurrent sessions discussing advocacy, diplomacy, constituent interaction, privacy, and specific technology deployments. Panelists shined a light on their project and career paths in an effort to guide audience members in their own.
Unlike the previous day’s panel, integrations were not airily discussed in terms of five to ten years out, but at a much more concrete near term including specifics on what they are work on currently. The intimacy of the venue and dense knowledge of the participants made sessions conversational and candid.
On a panel on how the Facebook generation is ushering in a new era of government, Clay Johnson explained that transparency had reached a critical mass and disclosed it was his last day at the Sunlight Foundation. The Atlanta native explained that he was disappointed with journalists’ lack of linking to pure sources like data sets, “We need to go on high quality information diets. We need to be as selective about what we put in our heads as what we put in our iPods.” Johnson plans to take time off to write a book addressing these topics and others.
Up next was DC Chief Technology Officer, Bryan Sivak discussing the District’s approach to the digital divide, data accessibility, and nurturing an engaged development community. “When you think about it, the higher income areas have 99% adoption of high speed, south and east of the river it’s 36%. That is the digital divide. DSL goes to every house, cable goes to every house and the main reason is finances isn’t it?”
Sivak feels the real key is training, “once we train people, they’re entire behavior pattern changes. We will fundamentally change the fabric of society; it’s a 2-3 year kind of program.” Event organizer Peter Corbett let Sivak’s cat out of the bag on a likely program to reoutfit a bus currently owned by the city as a mobile online learning lab. The bus should be rolling with connectivity in the next few months.
Since Sivak joined in October of 2009 OCTO has been going through each DC agency’s site and revamping the content and making the sites more mobile friendly. The next hope is to make them location aware. Other possibilities on the horizon include implementing a neighborhood feedback forum similar to http://localocracy.org and fostering innovation through two dimensional barcodes known as QR tags. Rolling out initially on the Circulator bus systemthe tags will be on every bus and bus stop and shelter throughout the city. The data will be completely open to developers to create applications based on the light platform.
The next session focused upon the technical and policy implications of secure cloud computing. Moderated by Randy Skoglund of Americans for Technology Leadership, the general tone of the participants from Intel, the Department of Homeland Security, and Georgetown University was to not fear the cloud given it was a transformational computational platform, but to be aware of its architecture.
Skoglund and Professor Nelson expressed an immediate need to define digital jurisdiction. Cloud computing creates a nightmare scenario where locally stored information on a PC has much more sanctity than data stored in the cloud. “When you push data to the cloud it’s not protected in the way it would be if it was on a computer in your home. We need to define unreasonable search and seizure. “ Nelson also cited an instance where British Columbia had decided not to allow Google to store residents’ data on servers in the US because of the US Patriot Act. John Kropf of DHS agreed stating, “It could be a really nightmare scenario to untangle jurisdictions for people whose data is stored in other countries.”
Kropf emphasized the government’s approach to data storage in a cloud computing age, “What’s important here is that privacy is not an afterthought to the process. Privacy should be like anything else. Privacy is baked in like business and technical requirements.“ Russ Fromkin of Intel agreed – differentiating the type of clouds out there, “If you have data that you don’t want to get out there. It should not go on a public cloud. You’re going to keep it as safe as possible. You need to know which type of cloud and what type of legal aspects will hit it.”
International concern continued with the next panel as they addressed the progress of mobile networks abroad. Oren Levine of Nokia announced the roll out of his company’s new bike charger for the new C1 model touting approximately 6 weeks of standby time. Praveen Goyal of Research in Motion mentioned RIMcontinues to build out the international EDGE network– the US precursor to 3G. Goyal cited, “EDGE can be done at a very low cost and allows carriers to get into the broadband data market at a much lower price point without having to upgrade their networks.” To upgrade to EDGE only the base station needs to be changed as opposed to the entire network wiring. Caitlin Bergin of the State Department emphasized SMS based information access and gathering’s importance in the developing world, “There is a correlation between access to information and freedom and prosperity.”
The closing Keynotes from Cammie Croft, former Deputy New Media Director at the White House, and Charlene Li author of Groundswell and Open Leadreship echoed the constant underlying drumbeat of the session: Let your goals direct your openness and break down the barriers by facilitating the information flow that makes those goals realities.
