Rotterdam, 14 October 2010

In Rotterdam the BurgerBewust Conference ('CitizenAware') took place, where various projects aimed towards increasing citizen participation were showcased, in over twenty workshops and with a 'network market'. At the end of the conference the yearly Dutch e-Participation Awards ceremony took place. The BurgerBewust conference was organized by BurgerLink (CitizenLink).

Out of over 500 initiatives, 10 were shortlisted (5 in the category for government initiatives, 5 for citizen initiatives), and two winners selected (Wikiwijs, an initiative to open up, make and share course ware for education, and petities.nl, an initiative for on-line petitions to government)

Before the awards were announced the jury singled out the Dutch Ministry for the Interior for a honorable mention. This because of their work towards open government data, more specifically the preparations for a Dutch open government data catalogue (like the British data.gov.uk). As can be read in the recent Topic Report on the Netherlands, the Dutch Ministry for the Interior has been purposefully making steps towards open government and open government data, as building block for participation in the past few years.

At the conference civil servants from the Ministry for the Interior took part in hosting a workshop that explored the relationship between transparency (including open data) and participation. As a new government has just taken office in the Netherlands on the day of the conference, not much is known yet how the work of the Ministry will continue under the new minister. Therefore in the workshop it wasn't so much about the coming steps the Ministry will make, but about what has been done so far, and how that fits the general picture, also in comparison to other countries. The slides from this workshop can be found on-line.

One of the nominees for an e-Participation Award was also an open government data demo-project, supported by the Ministry for the Interior, Vervuilingsalarm.nl (Pollution alert).