The World Bank Institute is holding a virtual dialogue onOpening Up Development:How Can Countries Start and Run Open Data Ecosystems? The event will feature personal reflections from leaders in Kenya and Moldova-two countries that have successfully embarked upon an Open Data agenda. Following these reflections, Theresa Pardo will join in a panel discussion on the importance of developing Open Government Data Ecosystems for the success of Open Government initiatives. Participants worldwide can join the discussion via video conference, live webcast and Twitter: #opendta.
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Meghan Cook will participate at the European Commission-sponsored event on Transparency and Openness. This ePractice workshop will aim to address the subject of transparency and openness of governments relating to their interaction with citizens. Meghan will give a presentation on A Public Value Approach to Open Government Planning - How to Plan and Measure When Traditional ROI Isn't Enough and then participate in a round table discussion.
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Critical Decision Making During Crisis is a course developed collaboratively by CTG and the National Center for Security & Preparedness in support of the NYS Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services. In this course the participants explore the decision-making process during daily activities as well as in crisis situations. It will provide discussion around overcoming hindrances and obstacles to effective decision making. The course makes use of scenario-based activity that involves critical decision making under stress and provides experience working in problem-solution situations. Anthony Cresswell will join staff from the National Center for Security & Preparedness in delivering the course.
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Anthony Cresswell will be participating on the plenary panel Open Government: Challenges and Opportunities at the 6th European Ministerial eGovernment Conference and Exhibition (egov2011PL). The panel will be focusing on the evolving openness of governments - from open data to open services. The session will facilitate sharing experiences from early adopters and identifying challenges, limits, and benefits arising from increased transparency, participation, and collaboration. It will be moderated by Prof. M. Muraszkiewicz from the Warsaw University of Technology, and also include Nigel Shadbolt, University of Southampton, UK; Haiyan Qian, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs; and John Higgins, Digital Europe.
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Meghan Cook has been invited to give the keynote at the 4th Annual Government Innovation Forum (GIF). Cook's presentation will focus on the key challenges and opportunities governments are facing with pressures to use new technologies to build the government of the future, one that is open, transparent, and collaborative. GIF brings together top public sector IT professionals from the federal, state and local levels throughout Mexico. The event is an opportunity to share experiences and hear how other governments, colleagues or experts are using IT tools in ways that can empower citizens or improve transparency and governments operations.
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On behalf of SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher, Theresa Pardo will be attending the Annual Conference of the Club de Madrid, Digital Technologies for 21st Century Democracy. At the conference, the world’s most experienced and inspirational political and business leaders, policy makers and scholars will be taking an in-depth look at the opportunities and challenges posed by the increasingly complex relationships between governments, their citizens and communication technologies. Conference participants will discuss how big data and networks are revolutionizing governance and democracy and outlining a series of principles for the implementation of 21st century democracy.
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The theme of the 2011 Fall Research Conference of the Association for Public Policy Management & Analysis (APPAM) is Seeking Solutions to Complex Policy and Management Problems. Sharon Dawes will be speaking at the Symposia on Policy Informatics to address how advances in information technology and computational modeling have enhanced our ability to address complex research questions. Natalie Helbig will be a speaker at the Roundtable discussion on What does Policy Informatics Mean? and Why should APPAM care?, which will explore what policy informatics is, how and why it is relevant to the APPAM community, and how to involve policy makers and practitioners to be interested and effective users of these approaches.
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To help agencies formulate their strategic plans for devloping citizen-facing mobile capacities, the US General Services Administration (GSA) has asked CTG to conduct a workshop for federal government professionals. While many government professionals see mobile as the way of the future, they also recognize that such change requires a broad-ranging strategic approach enabling the transformation to be as effective and beneficial as possible. A strategic framework positions mobile technologies within the larger organizational context of policy, management, business practices, and mission. During the workshop, the participants will review and discuss a high level strategic planning approach to gain a better understanding of what citizen-facing mobile government entails and what challenges arise when implementing it.
This workshop supports GSA's Making Mobile Gov Project.

Natalie Helbig will present on Designing Social Media Policy in Government at the Conference of State Bank Supervisor's 2011 Technology Seminar. The 2011 Tech Seminar seeks to address the current technological issues affecting the financial industry, the banking departments, and the regulatory process.
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Theresa Pardo has been invited by the Information Technology Authority of Sultanate of Oman to participate in the Sultan Qaboos Award for Excellence in eGovernment Award Jury Panel for 2011. The national competition targets government institutions and is a result of His Majesty's call for the development of a national strategy developing knowledge of citizens and skills in dealing with information technology and a call for all government institutions to accelerate the enhancement of services by digital technology and best practices.
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Theresa Pardo is participating on a panel about Smart Cities as part of the events for the 35th anniversary of the Public Administration and Policy program at Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas (CIDE). Pardo will be joined by Sehl Mellouli, Professor, Department of Information Systems, Université de Laval and J. Ramon Gil-Garcia, Associate Professor and Director, Data Center for Applied Research in Social Sciences at CIDE to discuss their partnership project to create a framework for service integration in Smart Cities.
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Sharon Dawes is traveling to Taiwan as a member of the U.S. Delegation to the 45th Annual ICA Conference, Innovative Government – Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future. Dawes is the chair and one of the facilitators for the session Looking to the Future, in which discussions will be focused on how learning from the past and emerging technologies can create open government (transparent, participatory and collaborative), transform service delivery to the citizens, and create operational efficiencies.
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Held annually, the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management's international research conferences attract the best researchers from around the world and covers topical issues in the public policy community. The Fudan University School of International Relations and Public Affairs (SIRPA), the University of Maryland School of Public Policy (UMD), and the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) are hosting this year's conference, entitled Collaboration Among Government, Market, and Society: Forging Partnerships and Encouraging Competition. Sharon Dawes will present the paper, Collaboration across Nations: Context and Dynamics, coauthored by Brian Burke and Lei Zheng (Fudan University). The paper focuses on the interactions among the participants during the six-year engagement that culminated in the implementation of AIRNow-I Shanghai, with particular attention to the ways in which their work was influenced by the need to deal with important contextual distances associated with culture, language, organizational factors, data, knowledge, and technology.
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The 2013 Major Cities of Europe Annual Conference will focus on "ICT:Fostering Cities' Prosperity.” The annual conference brings together local government managers and CIOs with leading experts in the ICT field to identify innovative solutions for the most pressing challenges cities face today. Meghan Cook will be a Track Chair both facilitating and speaking in the session, DATA: Leveraging a City’s Goldmine. The session will feature presentations and a roundtable from cities and public service ICT companies focused on maximizing a goldmine of data to promote new services, participation, economic development, societal changes.
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The 14th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (dg.o 2013) will focus on the theme, From e-Government to Smart Government. Natalie Helbig and Theresa Pardo are Track Chairs, Teresa Harrison and Jana Hrdinova are Panel Chairs, and Sharon Dawes and J. Ramon Garcia are co-chairs of the Doctoral Colloquium. Natalie, Theresa, Teresa, Sharon, and Ramon are also on the Program Committee. The dg.o meetings are an established forum for the presentation, discussion, and demonstration of interdisciplinary digital government research, technology innovation, applications, and practice. This year's conference is hosted by the Faculty of Business Administration at Laval University. Paper submissions are due February 1, 2013.
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