# Civicist Article — Open Government

## Pitch email to Civicist
Having put it all together now, the big theme that emerged from the conference was open government (and the related concept of 'openwashing'). This umbrella folds in much of the discussions both at the main conference and at the pre-conference events hosted by g0v (they are a key player in the Taiwan open government movement). The discussions centered around the concept of open government (coming to a common understanding of what open government means), practices (in Taiwan and outside — there is worry in the international community about US commitment to open government slipping in the Trump era) and impact (best practices, measures etc). Based on conference discussions, the core elements of open government are transparency, citizen participation, and collaboration between government and civic communities. Each of these elements have to meet a certain threshold for their to be true openness and not 'openwashing'. We think it would be great to write up a piece based on our learnings from the conference and then open the floor to the civic hall community. Perhaps we can even include pol.is survey on how open government is conceived of by the civic hall community.

## Conference events that can be touched on in the Open Government framework

### Resources
Conference agenda — http://civictechfest.org/
Taiwan Open Government report — https://opengovreport.ocf.tw/assets/pdf/report-en.pdf
TiCTeC@Taipei website — http://tictec.mysociety.org/taipei (contains collated resources from conference, including videos, photos and shared notes)
TiCTeC@Taipei Blog — https://www.mysociety.org/2017/10/02/highlights-from-tictectaipei/

Civic Tech in the Global South — http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/717091503398213001/Civic-tech-in-the-global-south-assessing-technology-for-the-public-good
Tiago Peixoto and Jonathan Fox's chapter (suggested by Micah)

### Events

#### Taiwan Open Government Report Release Forum (pre-conference event)
Taiwan Open Government Report is a research project conducted by the Open Culture Foundation to review the practice and impacts of open government policies in Taiwan from 2014 to 2016. In this report, they focus on four main fields of open government: (1) law and policies, (2) transparency through open data, (3) civic participation, and (4) collaboration through civic technology.

Topics covered
* definition of open government (4 main fields)
* open data evaluation metrics — Tim Berners-Lee 5 star scheme; Open Data Barometer (ODB), developed by the World Wide Web Foundation
* citizen participation evaluation metrics — Blulu metrics created by Lu Chia-hua and ET Blue
* collaborative relationships in civic tech (successes, challenges, how to facillitate)
* "openwashing"

#### Examples of Civic Technologies and Their Impacts

Moderator:
Dr. Rebecca Rumbul, mySociety (UK)
Panellists:
Chia-liang Kao, Open Culture Foundation (Taiwan)
Michael Cañares, World Wide Web Foundation (Indonesia)
Luke Bacon, Open Australia Foundation (Australia)
Gemma Humphrys, mySociety (UK)
Ifeoma Judith Onyebuchi, Public and Private Developmet Center (Nigeria)

Topics covered
* Tracking impact
* Examples of negative and beutral impact
* working with direct democracy vs representative democracy

#### How Can Civic Tech Reach More People? How Can Civic Tech Be More Inclusive?

Moderator:
Gemma Moulder Partnerships Manager (mySociety)
Panellists:
Nanjira Sambuli, World Wide Web Foundation (Kenya)
Liza Garcia, Foundation for Media Alternatives (Philippines)
James Powell, UNICEF Global Innovation Centre
Orianne Ledroit, French Digital Agency

Topics Covered
* ways to tackle the trend that our circles tend to be closed
* successful examples of people who are marginalised using civic tech tools

#### Government-led Civic Technology: Successes and Challenges

Moderator:
Jaclyn Tsai Former Minister without Portfolio of Taiwan
Panellists:
Sarah White, Code for America
Mathilde Bras, Etalab (France)
Shu Yang Lin,The Public Digital Innovation Space (Taiwan)
Tamas Erkelens, Program Manager Data Innovation, Municipality of Amsterdam (Netherlands)

Topics Covered
* look at video and notes for this

### Struggling Democracy: How Can Civic Tech Fight Against Openwashing?
Moderator
Wu Min Hsuan (ttcat), Open Culture Foundation (Taiwan)
Speaker
Sheba Najmi, Code for Pakistan
Khairil Yusof, Sinar Project (Malaysia)
Arthit Suriyawongkul,Thai Netizen Network
Hal Seki, Code for Japan

Topics Covered
* look at video and notes for this

### WCIT - Open Government: Civic Tech on Government Transparency and Citizen Participation
Moderator
Chia-liang Kao, Co-founder, g0v.tw /Board Member, Open Culture Foundation
Speaker
Audrey Tang, Digital Minister without Portfolio
Rebecca Rumbul, Head of research, mySociety
Mathilde Bras, Etalab, French Prime Minister's task force for Open Data, Open Gov and Data-driven transformation, France
Michael Canares, Regional Research Manager, Open Data Lab Jarkata, Indonesia
Sarah White, Program & Partnerships Manager, Code for America

Topics Covered
* "openwashing"
* look at video and notes for this

### Project examples to (possibly) include
* The Impacts of the SmartCity Platform
K. Kannababu, Director of Municipal Administration of Andhra Pradesh & Viraj Tyagi, eGovernments Foundation (India)
* Participatory City Planning with Open Data and Minecraft in Berlin
Dr Benjamin Seibel, Technologiestiftung Berlin (Germany)
* (maybe) Impacts of ‘School Chooser’ Digital Tools
Eric Reese, Center for Government Excellence at Johns Hopkins University (USA)
* Keyboard Participation: An Analysis of 'g0v' For Collaborative Participation by the Open Source Community
* (ask CS) The Impacts of PopVote in Hong Kong
Virgile Deville, Democracy Earth (France)
* (ask CS) Digital Skills Training for Better Citizen Participation in France
Orianne Ledroit and Pierre-Louis Rolle, The French Digital Agency (France)
* Open Government Project in Amsterdam
* Luke Bacon's project
* Find on codefor project to include

### include the importance of accountability
* think which of the conference proceedings cover this (think watchout ran a session called dirty data)

### g0v hackathon and the role g0v plays in pushing the government towards openness