Meghan Cook is joining other leading international experts to help the Russia government develop an open government strategy. In April of 2012, Russia announced its intention to join the Open Government Partnership (OGP), an international organization aimed at increasing the transparency and accountability of countries. In order to become an OGP member country, Russia must submit a National Action Plan that elaborates concrete commitments on open government. As part of this process, Russia is holding a conference with Russian and international experts and representatives of government, business, and civil society. During the two day event, Meghan will be leading two workshops and taking part in brainstorming sessions. The event is organized by the federal minister on Open Government, Moscow city government and Government expert council, with the support of the World Bank, Russian State Academy of Civil Services, and SAP.
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Sharon Dawes will be participating in a meeting of the consortium and scientific advisory board for the eGovPoliNet project in Koblenz, Germany. The eGovPoliNet/Crossover Consortium, sponsored by the European Commission FP7 research program, represents an expanding international network of research institutions investigating these globally important challenges. As a consortium member, under a grant from the NSF, CTG is conducting a literature review on research in the US focusing on the use of ICTs for policy modeling, governance, and related topics such as evidence-based policy making and policy informatics. This work has the potential to identify universal factors and to understand how the same challenges play out differently in different cultural and political settings.
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To be one of the most competitive cities in the world is a complex and constant challenge. It’s not enough for cities to be “smart;” cities must act on that intelligence to truly improve the lives of their citizens. Thought leaders from SAP, the Center for Technology in Government, and The Brookings Institution will discuss what it means to be a “best run city.” The panel will also feature representatives from progressive cities in North America who will answer questions about the pioneering approaches they are taking to spark innovation in policy-making, sustainability, government finance, and citizen interaction. This event is only for media and analysts; RSVP is required, please contact Evan Welsh at evan.welsh@sap.com.
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This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the establishment of the United Nations University - International Institute for Software Technology (UNU-IIST). In celebration of its anniversary, the institute has held activities throughout the year, which will culminate in a Gala Dinner on 30 November 2012. The dinner is expected to be attended by close to one hundred guests, including the UNU Rector; UNU-IIST Board Members; current staff, fellows, and students; former UNU-IIST Directors, institute staff and members of UNU governing bodies; and representatives and collaborators from the higher education sector and government agencies. As chair of the UNU-IIST board, Sharon is also participating in the annual board meeting.
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The New York State Office of Information Technology Services and the New York State Senate, in collaboration with CTG, are pleased to announce Capitol Camp 2012, November 15-16, in Albany. The third annual “Unconference” and “Hackathon” brings together government technology stakeholders together from the public and private sectors to discuss how technology can foster a more transparent, efficient, and participatory government for all New York State citizens. Capitol Camp 2012 spans two days and includes a Hackathon targeted toward computer programmers on Thursday, November 15th; and an Unconference targeting a wider audience of both technical and non-technical participants on Friday, November 16th.
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Barcelona, an innovative city and a pioneer in implementing sustainable policies, is the host of the Smart City Expo World Congress, a global benchmark and a unique event at which to learn, share, make contacts and find inspiration for developing the cities of the future. Theresa Pardo will be speaking on a panel about Smart and Open Government, which will address the question: How can governments be accessed by the citizen to gain a higher involvement and greater transparency?
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CTG is leading the development of a set of products for the Nigeria's Open Government efforts. As the leader of the Open Government Alliance, a group of organizations dedicated to helping governments throughout the world, CTG is drafting Nigeria's Open Government Plan for their entry into the international Open Government Partnership. Also, as part of this work, CTG is conducting a quick open government readiness assessment with recommendations for capability development.
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Theresa Pardo will participate as part of a multidisciplinary group of thinkers and doers in London for a two-day planning meeting supported by the MacArthur Foundation and hosted by NYU Wagner to develop a strategy for using technology to create more collaborative ways of governing to tackle the world’s hardest problems. The group will talk through their shared understanding of open and peer progressive governance; focus on how the techniques and technologies of open and participatory governance can help us tackle hard, real world problems; and examine these questions from the perspective of specific disciplines – with a focus on the potential of data science. Working groups will develop specific high impact projects that can help us refine our understanding of this new and evolving political theory for the digital age.
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This year’s roundtable, Advancing Policy Informatics at APPAM, will explore how policy relevant information and data have changed over the past few years and what that might imply for how we conduct policy and management research. Interest in policy informatics is motivated by advances in computational tools and information and communication technologies that have allowed us to deal explicitly with complexity, networks, and emergence, often using a systems approach/perspective. Speakers include John Kamensky, Senior Fellow and Associate Partner, IBM Center for the Business of Government; Gregory Bloss, Public Health Analyst/Program Official, National Institute of Health (NIH); Maureen Pirog, Editor, Journal of Public Policy Analysis and Management (JPAM) and Professor at the Indiana University; John C. Bertot, Editor, Government Information Quarterly (GIQ) and Professor at the University of Maryland; and Louise Comfort, Professor, University of Pittsburgh.
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The Association for Public Policy and Management (APPAM) is holding its Annual Conference, focusing on the theme: Policy Analysis and Public Management in an Age of Scarcity: The Challenges of Assessing Effectiveness and Efficiency. Natalie Helbig is presenting a paper, coauthored with Luis Lunes-Reyes (Universidad de las Americas) and Michael Deegan (Institute for Water Resources), entitled The role of performance information artifacts: A key mechanism for meaningful use.
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Meghan Cook and Dan Morgan, associate director at Phase One Consulting Group, on assignment with the Office of the Chief Information Officer at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), presented a tutorial at ICEGOV using CTG’s Public Value Framework and their Open Government Portfolio Public Value Assessment Tool (PVAT) as the foundation. During the the session, participants learned the basic concepts in public value analysis and hear lessons learned from the US Department of Transportation about their experiences in using the PVAT to develop their five year open government plan.
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CTG will be host to the 6th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV2012). This year’s conference is expected to bring together 300 practitioners, developers and researchers from government, local municipalities, academia, industry and civil society from over 50 countries from all over the world. One of the key themes of ICEGOV 2012 will be organized around the Open Government Partnership (OGP), and the role of openness in improving responsiveness, fostering accountability, creating efficiencies, promoting innovation and growth, fighting corruption, improving performance, and capturing dispersed knowledge in support of smarter policies. Taking place a year after the launch of the OGP, ICEGOV 2012 will be positioned for participants throughout the world to come together to share knowledge, discuss efforts of the OGP participating countries, as well as share challenges and lessons learned.
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The goal of this session, organized by the eGovPoliNet/Crossover Consortium, sponsored by the European Commission FP7 research program, along with the Center for Technology in Government (CTG) and UNU-IIST, is to exchange current practices and experiences using ICT solutions for governance and policy modeling between developed and developing countries. In addition, the session explored the opportunities and challenges for developing and engaging a robust community of policy makers, researchers, practitioners working in policy development and e-government domains.
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The Envisioning a Smart Binghamton Workshop was organized to bring together the City of Binghamton department heads to identify and discuss the challenges, needs, and goals towards creating a smarter Binghamton. The objective of the workshop was to gather information in order to inform the development of the city’s roadmap. Taking an interactive and interdisciplinary approach, the workshop activities took place in a plenary session facilitated by Meghan Cook and Theresa Pardo. The workshop is part of a larger project CTG is conducting with Binghamton to develop a holistic view of the city’s information management challenges and identify where necessary investments should be made in becoming a smarter city. Meghan and Theresa alos gave a presentation to the City Council that evening.

The City Protocol Society (CPS) is a new open, global, and progressive working framework for cities worldwide to assess and improve performance in environmental sustainability, economic competitiveness, quality of life, and city services, by innovating and demonstrating new leadership models, new ways of engaging society, and by leveraging new information and communication technologies (ICT). Meghan attended its first workshop in July, which was held in Barecelona, Spain. At this second workshop, the group worked to define the core elements of the CPS, set an action plan and build confidence for the CPS Launch in November at the Smart Cities Expo World Congress, which was attended by Theresa Pardo.
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Sharon Dawes participated in an international roundtable on Semantic Web and Linked Data for E-Governance and Industry as part of the 3rd Russian Conference on Knowledge Engineering and the Semantic Web in St. Petersburg, Russia. The roundtable was organized by the National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics (ITMO) and hosted at the St. Petersburg Higher School of Management. Presentations and discussions addressed the context and progress of open data initiatives in government, news agencies, civil society organizations, and other settings. Dawes also met with the leaders of ITMO's eGovernment Center to discuss ways to implement a recently signed cooperation agreement between CTG and ITMO to share research interests in open data strategies and technologies.

The 2012 LVI conference will be held in the United States for the first time, hosted by the Cornell Law School. Theresa Pardo, Meghan Cook, Teri Harrison, and Natalie Helbig will be presenting the session, Opening Government: Managing Complexity and Producing Public Value. This panel will focus on the current open government landscape and the role research and practice innovations are playing in managing the complexity of opening government and facilitating the creation of public value.
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Meghan Cook participated in a roundtable discussion funded by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance as part of the Vera Institute of Justice’s national Cost-Benefit Knowledge Bank for Criminal Justice project (CBKB). The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the purpose of investing in public safety technologies; describe cost-benefit analysis (CBA); and spell out the challenges in using CBA to assess public safety technology investments.
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Meghan Cook participated in this session organized in cooperation with UN-HABITAT, UN partners, and the private sector in support of the MDGs and implementation of the outcomes from UN World Urban Forum 6. The Session will feature the "2012 International Student Design Competition winning projects and presentation of awards." Participants are invited to contribute expertise and insights to enhance the discussion and development of recommendations for Habitat III (2016).

The 5th annual Public Performance Measurement & Reporting Network conference is hosted by Rutgers' School of Public Affairs and Administration. This year's conference is focused on the theme: Great Expectations: Getting Results From Performance Budgeting, Measurement and Reporting Systems. Natalie Helbig is presenting a paper entitled, Getting to actionable front-line practice improvements: The critical role of translation.
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Creating Public Value in a Multi-Sector, Shared-Power World is hosted by the Center for Integrative Leadership at the University of Minnesota. The main goal of the conference is to gain a deeper understanding of the foundational building blocks of how public value is created and to identify the characteristic strengths and weaknesses of this approach from a comparative perspective. Anthony Cresswell is presenting a paper entitled, Putting Public Value to Work: A Framework for Public Management Decision Making.
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Theresa Pardo is a member of the Executive Council for Information and Technology Management of the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The Executive Council is composed of noted IT experts from the public and private sectors and from academia, and serves to advise the U.S. Government Accountability Office on issues related to information management and technology.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Administration of Children and Families is hosting a Technology and Human Services Symposium to gain a better understanding of the issues and opportunities surrounding the intersection of technology with human services. Experts in and across the fields of human services administration and management, grant making, technology, and research have been invited to explore novel uses of technology and the needs of human services systems to identify where technology can meet these needs and stimulate new thinking about human service-related problems.

GTC East is an event for and about state and local government to foster discussion and dialogue on the use of information technology as a strategic tool for managers, executives and policy makers. At this year's conference, CTG will be participating on the following panels: IT Governance (Theresa Pardo); Knowledge Sharing and Cross Boundary Collaboration (Donna Canestraro); and The Transparency of Transparency (Meghan Cook & Natalie Helbig).
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As the US member of the international consortium working on ICTs, governance, and policy modeling, GovPoliNet/Crossover, Sharon Dawes participated in scientific advisory board and consortium meetings, as well as a project workshop. These meetings coincide with EGOV 2012: International IFIP Electronic Government Conference. Dawes will organize the EGOV 2012 PhD student colloquium, which provides doctoral students an international forum for presenting their work, networking opportunities and cross-disciplinary inspiration.
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The IFIP eGovernment Conference 2012 will bring together the top of the scientific research community in e-government and e-governance from all over the world. The conference provides a highly interactive and professional forum for exchanging research concepts, progress and results. As in the past, IFIP EGOV will feature refereed paper presentations, invited keynote presentations, high-level discussion panels, workshops, and a PhD Colloquium. Sharon Dawes is co-chair of the PhD Colloquium, along with Björn Niehaves, European Research Center for Information Systems, Germany, and Jochen Scholl, University of Washington.
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Theresa Pardo will give the keynote at the Government Innovation Forum 2012 (GIF) on Opening Government: Managing Complexity and Producing Public Value. Pardo’s keynote will focus on the current open government landscape and the role research and practice innovations are playing in managing the complexity of opening government and facilitating the creation of public value. GIF integrates local and international experts in the public sector and officials from all levels of government to discuss the opportunities in the Mexican technology agenda. The forum will provide an overview of the initiatives that are improving the way governments provide services to the community, and explore the use and benefits of social networks and mobility in collaboration with the community.
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As part of CTG's role in New York State's implementation of the National Youth in Transition Database (NYTD), Amanda Kronen, NYTD Project Coordinator at CTG, will be attending the NYTD Technical Assistance Meeting. The purpose of the meeting is for participants to discuss the results of the first round of national data and associated data quality issues, federal plans for continued analysis and dissemination, and preparations for the first follow-up population period. Additionally, there will be opportunities to network with NYTD teams from around the country to better understand the project on a national level.
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Join an expert session on Open Government: Modeling the Informational Relationships between Government and Society on the July 18th radio broadcast of Coffee Break with Game Changers. “Coffee Break” is a live, one-hour weekly Internet radio show on Voice America Business, produced in conjunction with SAP Radio. The Open Government panel will be featured live from 11 a.m. – 12 p.m. ET. The radio show will feature four distinguished panelists including: David Nero, Director of Technology for the City of Boston; Jeanne Holm, Data.gov Chief Evangelist and NASA Chief Knowledge Architect; Natalie Helbig, Senior Program Associate, Center for Technology in Government; and Russ LeFevre, Vice President, Industry Solutions Marketing, SAP.
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The City Protocol is a new open, global, and progressive working framework for cities worldwide to assess and improve performance in environmental sustainability, economic competitiveness, quality of life, and city services, by innovating and demonstrating new leadership models, new ways of engaging society, and by leveraging new information and communication technologies (ICT). At the workshop, representatives of 35 cities from six continents will be joined by colleagues from universities, industry and city organizations to help create the City Protocol Society and define how we understand the future of our cities and to begin to create a real market and a real science of smart cities.
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Data.gov and the World Bank are sponsoring the second International Open Government Data Conference (IOGDC), which will bring together the world's foremost experts on open government data around the theme "Putting Data to Work." The conference will gather policymakers, developers, and others with a keen interest in open government data to share lessons learned, stimulate new ideas, and demonstrate the power of democratizing data. From policy to technology, IOGDC promises to be filled with thoughtful, dynamic discussion around the historic opportunity presented by open government data to foster collaboration, transparency, and interactive public participation.
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The objective of the W3C Using Open Data Workshop is to provide a joint discussion forum for developers of applications that make use of open data, and the end users of those applications such as policy makers, journalists and citizens.This workshop asks a simple question: what is all the 'new' government open data being used for? The primary outcome expected from the workshop is a greater understanding of what can be done with open data on the Web, how it can be used for the benefit of a variety of audiences and what the roadblocks are to greater exploitation of data. Sharon Dawes will present on A Realistic Look at Open Data.
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In this webinar (A Public Value Analysis Tool for Open Government Planning), Meghan Cook, program manager at CTG, and Kristen Baldwin, Senior Accountable Official for Open Government, US Department of Transportation will present the basic ideas of public value and how the U.S. Department of Transportation (US DOT) used CTG's Open Government Portfolio Public Value Assessment Tool (PVAT) to assess their own OG efforts for the purpose of updating the agency’s open government plan. The webinar will be hosted by GSA's HowTo.gov at 11 am EST. More details to come.
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The 2012 MCE Conference will focus on the question of "IT – Driving the City of Tomorrow?" and discuss the topic against the backdrop of innovative information and communication technologies. Important topics of the conference are: open government, open data, social networks, cloud computing and smart cities. CIOs and IT managers from Austrian and European cities will exchange experiences and discuss lessons learned in interactive workshops. Theresa Pardo will present on Building a Global Framework for Making Cities Smarter, drawing from CTG's current project, Smart Cities Service Integration. To get a special registration rate for this conference, please contact Meghan Cook.
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CTG staff will participate at the 13th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (dg.o 2012), Bridging Research and Practice. The dg.o meetings are an established forum for the presentation, discussion, and demonstration of interdisciplinary digital government research, technology innovation, applications, and practice. Theresa Pardo, Sharon Dawes, Natalie Helbig, and Teresa Harrision are serving on the 2012 Program Committee. Sharon Dawes will co-chair the Doctoral Colloquim, along with Dr Bjoern Niehaves of the University of Muenster and Dr. Jochen Scholl of the University at Washington. The Doctoral Colloquium is a full-day forum in which Ph.D. students meet and discuss their work with each other and with senior faculty from a variety of disciplines associated with digital government research.
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The School of International Relations and Public Affaires of Fudan University is hosting a Public Management Research Conference, Seeking Excellence in a Time of Change, jointly sponsored by the China-America Association of Public Affairs, the International Research Society for Public Management, and the Public Management Research Association in Shanghai. This conference aims to promote multidisciplinary and comparative research on public organizations and our knowledge about public management and public policy in a globalized world, and to strengthen the communication between western and eastern public management scholars. Theresa Pardo will present a paper on Non-Emergency Service Channels for Service Integration: a Comparative Case Study of Smart Cities, from CTG's Smart Cities Service Integration project.
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The New York State Assembly Committee on Governmental Operations, Committee on Oversight, Analysis, and Investigation, and Legislative Commission on Government Administration is holding a hearing on the State's Information Technology Infrastructure to examine how the State's agencies and municipalities are currently using advances in information technology and how such advances can be used to create jobs and serve the public more efficiently and more responsively. Theresa Pardo has been invited to testify on how new advances in information technology may make it possible to achieve significant increases in government efficiency, fiscal responsibility, and openness while providing better services and reducing regulatory burdens.
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As part of Internet Week New York, a week-long festival celebrating NYC's thriving internet industry and community, CTG in partnership with Sobel Media and the SUNY Global Center is hosting . Meghan Cook will moderate a panel that will draw from the experiences of government leaders in charge of implementing 311 in New York City and Philadelphia, and from those in the private sector working on public-private partnerships that are key to advancing smart city innovations. Theresa Pardo will participate on the panel to contribute insights from CTG's project Smart Cities Service Integration, which has involved extensive interviews with those involved in 311 operations in New York City and Philadelphia. The event will take place at SUNY Global Center at 116 East 55th Street starting at 8 am.
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CTG is the US member of an international consortium working on ICTs, governance, and policy modeling, eGovPoliNet, which is a project funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme. Sharon Dawes and Natalie Helbig will participate in scientific advisory board and consortium meetings, as well as a project workshop. These meetings also coincide with tGovernment Workshop 2012 (tGov2012), which is being hosted by the Business School at Brunel Univeristy.
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Joel Gurin, Senior Consumer Advisor at Federal Communications Commission, will be spending the day at CTG to explore issues related to Smart Disclosure and Big Data with CTG staff and University at Albany faculty. Joel is currently the Full-time Chair of Task Force on Smart Disclosure, interagency group chartered by National Science and Technology Council to study best practices for database-driven consumer information.
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The Institute for Information Technologies and Societies (IITS) at Université Laval is hosting a day-long colloquim on Smart Cities, Sustainable Cities, the first event of its kind in Quebec. Theresa Pardo will be one of fifteen speakers from academia and the business community, from Quebec, France, the United States and Mexico to explore the concepts of smart cities. CTG is currently working on a Smart Cities Service Integration project, which includes a case study of Québec and several other cities in the U.S., Mexico, and China.
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The American Bar Association's Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice's 2012 Spring Conference is focused on The Administrative Agency in the Electronic Age. The conference is co-sponsored by the Program in Law and Public Affairs and Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. Sessions will include panels on: Effective Public Engagement in eRulemaking and Beyond; Maximizing the Value of Agency Websites; and, Ubiquitous Monitoring, Information Flows and Privacy.
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The White House and the National Archives and Records Administration is hosting a Summit on Smart Disclosure. This Summit is the first government-wide event to discuss current work and best practices, bringing together key stakeholders representing philanthropy, academia, consumer groups, and the nonprofit sector. The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Task Force on Smart Disclosure has been working to promote better disclosure policies and aid in the timely release of complex information in standardized, machine-readable formats that enable consumers to make informed decisions in numerous domains.
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Theresa Pardo has been invited to participate at the OECD High-level Meeting on E-government: New ICT Solutions for Public Sector Agility, hosted by the Mexican Public Administration Ministry. Pardo will moderate the opening session on Leveraging ICTs for advancing public policy objectives, which will focus on the challenges faced by e-leaders and explore options for national approaches and strategies embracing the use of new technologies. Since 2003, OECD has held a series of e-leaders meetings and seminars to provide the most senior government officials responsible for e-government in OECD member countries a forum for political and strategic exchange of opinions among peers on questions of common interest.
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The Forum's IT Corporate Roundtable provides a productive context for IT corporations and Forum membership to pursue proactive communications and initiatives targeted on improved mutual understandings and communications and, ultimately, more efficient state procedures, products and services better aligned with New York State needs. Theresa Pardo and Meghan Cook are presenting at their Roundtable Workgroup Meeting to give background on CTG, showcase a couple of our projects (that started as theory/prototypes and are now in operation) and suggest ideas of ways the corporate community can be part of CTG's network.
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The School of Information and Library Science (SILS) and School of Government (SOG) at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) is holding a day-long symposium called Government Bits: Stewardship of Public Information in a Changing Digital Landscape. Themes of the day will include challenges in the stewardship of electronic records; current solutions for digital records environments; moving from a paper-based environment to a digital environment; information stewardship strategies for public administrators; and building information systems for information stewardship. The panel discussions and other interactive sessions will relate to lessons and strategies for professionals to engage in public information stewardship.
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Jana Hrdinova will be delivering a two-day training course for government professionals from Moldova on managing social media use in a government context. The training is financed by the U.S. Department of State. After the training, Jana will spend an additional two days at the e-Governance Center of Moldova working with them on social media guidelines.
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The World Bank and the e-Governance Center of Moldova are jointly sponsoring Moldova Open Government Day. Theresa Pardo will present on the U.S experience with open government; other speakers include Andrew Stott from the UK Transparency Board, Daniel Dietrich from the Open Knowledge Foundation, and many more participants representating civil society (NGO); data journalism; academia, donors and leading government representatives.The first part of the day is geared towards helping Moldova finalize its draft National Open Government Action Plan in preparation to joining the Open Government Partnership. The second part, a Seminar on Open Budget Data, will be livecast at 10 am EST. This session will focus on Moldova's use of BOOST, a new tool developed by the World Bank to help its client countries in their efforts to enhance budget spending transparency.
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As part of President Obama’s Open Government Initiative, all federal agencies are required to submit an updated version of their Open Government Plan to the White House by April 2012. In meeting this requirement, the U.S. Department of Transportation (US DOT) is using CTG's Open Government Portfolio Public Value Assessment Tool (PVAT) to maximize the impact of their open government portfolio. Meghan Cook analyzed the public value assessments of 11 proposed USDOT initiatives to be included in their updated plan and presented findings to the Agency’s Open Government Executive Steering Committee (OGESG). The committee will use this information for decision making about their Flagship Initiative and will incorporate the public value findings in their updated Open Government Plan.
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As part of their annual training meeting, CTG has been invited to present our work on social media policy, public value thinking, and smart cities during a session on Information Technology a transformative agent for local government. CTG presenters will be Theresa Pardo, Meghan Cook, and Natalie Helbig. The Association is a professional organization of appointed chief executive officers and administrators, other appointed municipal officials and educators dedicated to the improvement of local government and the quality of urban life.
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CTG is part of an international research team that has received a grant to build the capacity of graduate students as international researchers and to develop a framework for smart cities service integration. Theresa Pardo and Taewoo Nam, a CTG graduate assistant and doctoral candidate in Public Administration at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, will be attending the third working group meeting, held at the Information School, University of Washington, Seattle. The whole team will be jointly refining a scheme to categorize the qualitative data from semi-structured interviews in each city and discussing the issues of inter-rater reliability in coding the interview data. Also, Theresa and Taewoo will be presenting preliminary findings from interviews with the City of Philadelphia government's executives and managers of its core programs (Philly311, PhillyRising, and PhillyStat) to improve city services, government operation, and communities.
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To meet the requirement of having an updated version of their Open Government Plan, the US DOT is using CTG's Open Government Portfolio Public Value Assessment Tool (PVAT) to conduct a value analysis on their proposed initiatives. Over the course of two days, Cook is leading agency teams in workshops so that they can conduct a public value analysis on their initiatives. CTG will analyze results of all the public value assessments and present findings to the agency's Open Government Executive Steering Committee.
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Theresa Pardo has been invited to moderate a panel of experts who will focus on examining issues surrounding diplomacy and technology, including trends in social media communication, the impact of new technology on the conduct of foreign relations, and how government uses new technology to effectively promote their interests. Panelists are Phillip J. Crowley, Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs; General Garry D. Raduege, Jr., Chairman of the Deloitte Center for Cyber Innovation; Mr. Eugene Roman, Chief Technology Officer, Open Text; Dr. Janice Stein, Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto. This event is a joint venture presented by the Consulate General of Canada in New York in conjunction with the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, the Province of Ontario, and the State University of New York and will take place at the SUNY Global Center.
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Sharon Dawes is meeting with various agencies in Shanghai to discuss transnational cooperation and information access. Dawes will be meeting with officials from the Shanghai Information Center and Shanghai Environmental Monitoring Center, as well with CTG's partners at Fudan University. The meetings are, in part, a follow up to CTG's Understanding Transnational Public Sector Knowledge Networks project, which produced a case study assessing a collaborative project between the US EPA and the Shanghai Environmental Monitoring Center.

The Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) is one of the longest-standing continuously running scientific conferences. At HICSS45, Theresa Pardo is serving as mini-track co-chair of Emerging Topics in the Electronic Government Track, which takes a look at new topics and trends that are emerging in e-Government. Pardo and CTG graduate assistants (Djoko Sigit Sayogo and Taewoo Nam) will also present papers on Understanding Smart Cities: An Integrative Framework; Building the Academic Community of E-Government Research on Cross-Boundary Information Integration and Sharing; and Exploring the Motive for Data Publication in Open Data Initiative: Linking Intention to Action.
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The 2012 Winter ESIP Federation Meeting will focus on the theme: Connections Through Collaboration: Engaging Community Throughout the Data Life Cycle. With increasing attention being paid to data systems interoperability both within and across science disciplines, the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) plays an important role in bringing together organizations and individuals who make the connections - both human and technical - necessary to achieve integrated science. Brian Burke, along with Dan Ferguson, University of Arizona will lead the hands-on Evaluation Workshop: A Framework for Project Evaluation, which will focus on 1) why one evaluates data and their associated enabling technologies for discovery and distribution and 2) some basic methods for getting started with evaluating the impact of your own research or products. Burke will introduce CTG's Public Value Framework and how it uses the concept of public value to help government and those that work with government understand the tangible and intangible values that information can provide to multiple and often diverse stakeholders.
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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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