Beth Noveck on Open and Transparent Government

Without participation, citizens can become increasingly alienated. Beth Noveck — President Obamas Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government — wants to create more opportunities for citizens to engage and for government to engage in civic structures — a DoSomething.gov. Noveck talks about some of the initiatives taken on by the US Government over the last year or so, and reflects on some of the successes and struggles.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• berkman center
• harvard
• Open Government

[ananiasacts]

Why not create a suite of tools that would allow city governments to more easily standardize their information technology? If that is illegal because the fed would be competing with private industry, then why not offer a prize to the first company that creates an open software platform adopted by 70% of the nation's largest cities? Or financial incentives for the cities themselves to adopt a web standard developed to facilitate full deployment of open government directives? Where's the beef?

[ananiasacts]

I think we should use the period between elections to vet prospective candidates by creating a forum designed to help them evangelize the issues presently facing our leadership. This would give the electorate an easier way to get to know how they would perform in office, as well as become better informed about the issues facing us. I believe that if we looked for ways to make our political capital more tangible the public would have a greater incentive to both understand and participate in gov.