Last week, I attended a seminar on ‘The democratizing power of technology’. It was organized by SPUR – an association that works to make resilience-based approaches an integral part of San Francisco’s urban policy and planning agenda.
The seminar kicked off with a presentation by the San Francisco city governments ‘Chief Innovation Officer’ (CIO). If you’re ignorant of what that is, don’t fret. In the last 6 months, Philadelphia happens to be only the second city in the United States to have appointed a Municipal Chief Innovation Officer.
What exactly do these CIO’s do? They think up innovative strategies on how city governments can deliver better services, enhance citizen participation and lower administrative costs. Are we moving towards a soon-to-be ubiquitous trend of e-governance through e-communities? In fact, are we already in it?
It is clear that city governments are confronted with new challenges. Most parts of this country have seen enormous cut backs and re-prioritization of public spending in past years. However, this time around, something is different.
Governments are no longer trying to figure this out on their own - they are crowd-sourcing solutions to some of the most pressing problems their cities face. Whether its improving the quality of public transportation, access to taxi services, safe infrastructure and housing, or making online form submissions to various departments efficient, the San Francisco city government is opening up its department silos by adopting an integrated systems approach to governance – making it more transparent, accountable and collaborative.
But what has motivated this trend towards ‘open government’? In short: a debilitated economy and the advent of citizen driven open-data platforms (now being touted as ‘humanity’s dashboard’).
It makes sense too. Unemployment (and underemployment) is at an all time high, which means you have highly skilled people sitting around. This pool of skilled, tech-savvy, engaged citizens is a perfect match for a city government that is willing to let go off its bureaucratic processes and embrace an open data platform – one that facilitates useful inputs from data-rich, data-aware and data-smart citizens.
If you want more history to it, look up Obama's White House Open Government Directive. In 2009, it created national access to www.data.gov with a view to make all kinds of government data accessible to the public.
This national momentum towards open government means we’re going to see an evolution from previous technology-led interfaces (mere information sharing through city administration websites, for instance), to user-led platforms (where solutions to city problems are identified in 'hackathons') that feed into smart e-governance services (taxes, transport etc).
What is most exciting is that city governments are gearing up to make the best use of easy access to intellectual capital – their citizens.
I wonder how the open government and its e-governance tools will fare on creating more resilient e-communities though? Remains to be seen, but we're certainly on the right track!
The seminar kicked off with a presentation by the San Francisco city governments ‘Chief Innovation Officer’ (CIO). If you’re ignorant of what that is, don’t fret. In the last 6 months, Philadelphia happens to be only the second city in the United States to have appointed a Municipal Chief Innovation Officer.
What exactly do these CIO’s do? They think up innovative strategies on how city governments can deliver better services, enhance citizen participation and lower administrative costs. Are we moving towards a soon-to-be ubiquitous trend of e-governance through e-communities? In fact, are we already in it?
It is clear that city governments are confronted with new challenges. Most parts of this country have seen enormous cut backs and re-prioritization of public spending in past years. However, this time around, something is different.
Governments are no longer trying to figure this out on their own - they are crowd-sourcing solutions to some of the most pressing problems their cities face. Whether its improving the quality of public transportation, access to taxi services, safe infrastructure and housing, or making online form submissions to various departments efficient, the San Francisco city government is opening up its department silos by adopting an integrated systems approach to governance – making it more transparent, accountable and collaborative.
But what has motivated this trend towards ‘open government’? In short: a debilitated economy and the advent of citizen driven open-data platforms (now being touted as ‘humanity’s dashboard’).
It makes sense too. Unemployment (and underemployment) is at an all time high, which means you have highly skilled people sitting around. This pool of skilled, tech-savvy, engaged citizens is a perfect match for a city government that is willing to let go off its bureaucratic processes and embrace an open data platform – one that facilitates useful inputs from data-rich, data-aware and data-smart citizens.
If you want more history to it, look up Obama's White House Open Government Directive. In 2009, it created national access to www.data.gov with a view to make all kinds of government data accessible to the public.
This national momentum towards open government means we’re going to see an evolution from previous technology-led interfaces (mere information sharing through city administration websites, for instance), to user-led platforms (where solutions to city problems are identified in 'hackathons') that feed into smart e-governance services (taxes, transport etc).
What is most exciting is that city governments are gearing up to make the best use of easy access to intellectual capital – their citizens.
I wonder how the open government and its e-governance tools will fare on creating more resilient e-communities though? Remains to be seen, but we're certainly on the right track!
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