Open Government Event March 20

Interested in public access to government information?

Check out this free event: Opening Doors: Finding the Keys to Open Government, Friday, March 20, 2009 (10am-1pm), UW Odegaard Undergraduate Library, Room 220.

A national webcast will feature a discussion of what the Obama Administration is — or should be — doing to promote open government, what you can do to advance that goal, and what the news media are doing to make government information easily available in American communities. Following the webcast, Gary Robinson, the former Director of the Washington State Department of Information Services (WA state’s CIO), and Mike Fancher, former Executive Editor of The Seattle Times newspaper, will join us for a discussion of issues at the state level.

National webcast participants:
· Beth Noveck, professor of law and director of the Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School and author of Wiki Government (Brookings 2009).

· Dan Chenok, a member of President Obama's “Technology, Innovation and Government Reform ” transition team, former branch chief for information policy and technology in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and currently senior vice president and general manager of Pragmatics.

· Katherine McFate, a Program Officer for Government Performance and Accountability in the Ford Foundation's Governance Unit.

Local speakers:
· Gary Robinson, former Director of Washington State Department of Information Services. As Washington State’s former Chief Information Officer, Mr. Robinson brings a wealth of expertise in state and local e-government issues. He will talk about current e-government issues in WA, other states, and the District of Columbia (President Obama’s model for federal reform) as well as the impact of the state budget crisis on e-government.

· Mike Fancher, former Executive Editor of the Seattle Times. In his 30 years at the newspaper he managed the newsroom and “shape[d] a vision for independent, public-service journalism”, authored the Sunday "Inside the Times" column and created the blog, “Press Here," which explored the "nexus between the press, the public and technology."

This event is FREE and open to the public.

Online registration will be available soon here.

LOCAL SPONSORS:
Law Librarians of Puget Sound (LLOPS)
University of Washington Libraries
Washington State Library
Washington Coalition for Open Government