eGov initiatives in Austin Texas

A brief update - for information purposes only, no action needed 
-  on recent activity around our town with respect to open 
government/iGovernment issues:

1. Last Friday, the LBJ School conducted an extremely successful 
conference on open government.

http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://21stcenturyproject.org/index.php/site/transparency_conference/

We heard from leading luminaries such as Sen. Bill Bradley and White 
House CIO Vivek Kundra. The event was recorded, and we are told it 
will eventually be posted online in its entirety.

2. There was a summit meeting between some local open government 
advocates and the City of Austin CTM department (that's our IT 
department) on plans for the city's web site. The $700K outsourcing 
contract is still before Council for approval. Staff is now 
recommending that contract be turned down and we do a "reboot" on the 
entire process.

This meeting was also videotaped, and should (eventually) be 
cablecast on channel 6 as well as posted to the AustinGO web site.

http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/channel6/
http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.austingo.org/

3. A new group called "OpenAustin" has been formed to use community 
resources to crowd source the requirements for the city web site 
project and perhaps a significant part of the development.  You can 
find that group here:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=90275885408

Received on Monday, 18 May 2009 19:06:23 UTC