As Featured on GovLoop

I spend a fair amount of time at Open Source conferences. I arrive with a government bias plus some of the great ideas that open source enables like transparency and open government. Although most panels/sessions/talks/round tables will eventually get around to the idea of education and work force training, I rarely see anyone responsible for actually delivering or receiving that training at these events.

I recently participated in POSSCON, the 3rd annual Palmetto Open Source Software Convention, hosted in South Carolina capitol city of Columbia. My experience with this community was inspiring and I think it can serve as a lesson for many.

During an executive panel discussion the moderator, Matt Asay, asked me to give an example of a government open source project. I described (in layman’s terms) the information challenge in health care, the increasing use of open-standards and open source, and its potential to improve interoperability in health care systems. I also cited the U.S. Health and Human Services’ CONNECT project as a great example of using the open source development and community methodology.

Afterward I was approached by several people who told me “We really couldn’t get what the panel was talking about until you started talking about open source and Health IT as a real example – then we got it.” Open source had little tangible value to this group until it was described in context. What is the impact to a patient when their health care records are incomplete? When their information is scattered between physicians, pharmacies, immediate care centers, rest homes, dentists offices, and hospital emergency rooms? When those systems are not designed to work together? When they understand how open source can help solve these problems, they “get it.”

Twenty students from the South Carolina Rehabilitation Center were there. Their stories were impressive. One student’s career as an LVN had ended with an accident so she was retraining in health information technology. I introduced her to a medical clinic open source entrepreneur from Atlanta that was going to need subject matter expert. Another student’s goal was to open a shelter for homeless vets. We talked about Virginia’s Veteran’s Affairs open-API community portal work – where the community of veterans help an understaffed VA get through paperwork and identify resources for returning vets. She’s now interested in doing the same thing in South Carolina. A third student with a degree in Health Informatics learned about HHS’ electronic health record project, CONNECT. Every discussion included opportunities to leverage open source, and a great desire to improve people’s lives.

The opportunity for open source in health IT is immediately apparent in every niche of that industry. I recently learned my own dentist used open source software to run his clinic! In government, we see this opportunity in the Health and Human Services’ national health information network architecture, in the National Cancer Institute’s research, the way the Social Security Administration handles sensitive health records, and the way the Veteran’s Administration runs hospitals. In a clinical setting, state and local government can expect citizens to be better served through Electronic Health Records services and improved patient care — particularly for under-served communities. The most exciting development is with Personal Health Records, consumer-based patient-centric information that will empower individuals to master their own health care (a topic for another post).

Back to the event itself; interdisciplinary and cross-industry events can be tricky to make successful but can be super-conductors for innovation. The challenge is that different audiences have varying interests and attention spans. Blended audiences, especially Columbia’s with representation from education, business, government and technology, need facilitation if interaction is the goal. POSSCON organizers did a great job of building a strong program that had something for everyone and in a format designed to converge everyone’s interests. POSSCON was a great example of how valuable face-to-face events such as this can be, even though collaboration can be happening every day virtually. Having everyone in a room is critical to inspiring, coalescing, creating and sustaining motion.

I once read that the complexity of today’s problems can only be solved by teams of people who do not naturally work together. Open source software and the kind of thinking and collaboration used to create it provides a framework to solve some of the thorniest and most interesting problems around. I think POSSCON is a wonderful example of this in bringing industry, government and education together under one well-pitched big tent.

Curt is a fantastic supporter of open Collaboration and loves to share the inside story of the Lab. He’ll be speaking Thursday March 18th at 4 p.m., here’s the abstract:

Inside the Open Source Lab
Curt Pederson, Vice Provost and CIO, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon

Oregon State University has emerged as one or the global leaders in the expanding “open source” movement and an integral part of a growing Oregon movement in support of community based innovation and collaboration. From Oregon resident Linus Torvalds and Governor Kulongoski to the student employees working in the Open Source Lab (OSL), we have a very unique open climate for doing leading edge research, teaching and business in Oregon and beyond.

Curt Pederson will describe Oregon State University’s role in today’s emerging “open ecosystem” and how the OSL has gone from being a spectator to having one of the largest host sites of open source applications and community Linux releases in the world. Curt will also discuss the overall ROI that OSU has obtained by using open source tools versus other commercial solutions.

e-Sri Lanka: Transforming Government and Society with ICT

When: May 28, 2009, 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. ET (GMT – 4 hours)

Live webcast: http://vcg01.worldbank.org/eDev

World Bank invites you to this seminar to discuss lessons learned from
implementing an integrated e-government and e-development program in Sri
Lanka and setting up a dedicated government agency to support this agenda.
The E-Sri Lanka initiative, which became effective in January 2005 is one
of the pioneering ICT for Development projects supported by the World
Bank. This ambitious e-development project aims to bring connectivity to
rural populations, improve the way government operates and raise awareness
of the benefits of ICT for remote rural populations as well as support the
development of a vibrant private ICT sector. The leadership team from Sri
Lanka’s ICT Agency will present (i) the original E-Sri Lanka vision and
(ii) emerging lessons and key results after the first four years of
implementation experience. To learn more about e-Sri Lanka program visit:
www.icta.lk

Event details: http://go.worldbank.org/8RRMW83HB0

You can ask questions and post comments via Twitter (#eSL09) which will be
shared live with the speakers and audience in Washington

The June 23, 2009 Government Open Source Conference (GOSCON) DC Call for Speakers is now open!

The conference will  include one day of intense GOSCON program content, exciting keynotes, lightening-round sessions, rich opportunities to network with peers.  Topics include:

• Open Source in the Enterprise
• Sustainability
• Policy
• Open Collaboration & Federal Grants
• Open Health IT- Vertical Showcase on Public Health
• Effective E-Government – Gov 2.0

Speaker Guideline and online proposal forms are availlable through the conference Call for Speakers page.

http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dfj65hxm_1404gk5kchg

This un-conference is about convening a trans-partisan tribe of open government advocates from all walks — government representatives, technologists, developers, NGOs, wonks & activists — to share knowledge on how to use new technologies to make our government transparent and meaningfully accessible to the public.

Here’s their focus:

1) Technology development for enhancing government transparency

2) Community building for the transparency in government tribe

3) Talks, workshops and coding sessions to better equip technologists with the skills needed to deliver an Open Government.

I’ll be one of the less technical folks there, but hope to contribute to #2 above, and share what I know from my walk in government shoes.

Although the event filled up some time ago, I encourage you to sign up for their list for the next one (more than likely) or consider a small sponsorship.  The event wiki can be found at https://barcamp.pbwiki.com/TransparencyCamp.

IPA Japan Representatives

I just returned from Matsue, Japan, also known famously as “Ruby City” after the programming language whose inventor lives there.

During my stay there I provided the keynote for a Shimane University-sponsored seminar on Open Source Software, Industry and Academic collaboration.  It was an honor to represent some of the institutions and groups in Oregon, the successes and challenges we’ve faced in using, promoting, developing and supporting a full open eco-system in our somewhat unique state.  Key to my message and encouragement to participants from all sectors of their region was this; if you want to demonstrate the value of open source to non-technical constituencies, identify and collaborate on a project with clear public benefit.

One of the panelists was Mr. Hatta from Japan’s Information-Technology Promotion Agency’s (IPA).  He told me later he changed his presentation as I spoke, struck by the proposition of public benefit projects.  I’ll ask for his presentation and share it here soon.

His wrap-up recommendation: create a public benefit project and the suggestion that project might be an Open Source Election system,  apparently an idea with universal appeal/compelling need.

I’ll come back soon to sharing more about my travels to Matsue City, their impressive open source software initiative, the investment their government has made, and the outstanding collaboration between the university, industry and public sectors.

I’d also be remiss in my public benefit duties if I did not provide a final plug for the February 18th Open Source Digital Voting Foundation’s (OSDV.org)  “TrustTheVote” intro in Portland, Oregon (see prior post for agenda).  I’m looking forward to introducing them to my colleagues in Japan soon, and looking forward to hearing from Gregory Miller and John Sebes, the co-founders, even sooner.

TrustTheVote! intro in Portland, Oregon

Feb 18, 2009, 6:00 – 7:30 p.m.

CubeSpace, 622 SE Grand Ave, Portland

I’ve recently been asked to join as an adviser to the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation.  In my view, this is one of the most important open source projects around for the US system of democracy.  I was deeply impressed by their open standards specification,  public trust approach and the work they’ve done thus far – with little public fan fare – to establish the non-partisan initiative which has become known as “TrustTheVote!”.

Recognizing a large, active OSS community exists in Oregon, the OSDV is coming to Portland on February 18th to introduce their project.  Although the meeting content is designed for a technical audience, the project overview and progress-to-date would be of interest to many.

Here’s a description of the event.  You can also view details including a map to the event at Portland’s CubeSpace on Yahoo or Calagator.  If you’re in the area, hope to see you there!

TrustTheVote! intro in Portland, Oregon, Feb 18, 2009

Discover this imperative “public digital works project” of the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation. The OSDV Foundation is a Silicon Valley based public benefits corporation whose mission is to work to restore trust in how America votes through the design, development, and demonstration of open source digital voting technology.

Join us to learn details about the “TrustTheVote Project,” a well funded non-profit effort which has been under the radar for 2 years. The OSDV Foundation is now raising public awareness, and expanding efforts including a planned development center in Portland, Oregon.

Our guests are two executives of the Foundation including its Chief Technology Officer. Their presentation will:

• Introduce the project, its motivation, founding, and development efforts to date;
• Walk through the TrustTheVote technology road map and review major projects underway;
• Discuss development philosophies and approaches including experience-driven design and test-driven agile development;
• Review opportunities for systems architects, software developers, SDQA/test specialists, and user experience designers;
• Cover plans to expand the volunteer developer teams, future opportunities for senior members of technical staff, and opportunities for you to get involved.

Presenters:
Gregory Miller, Chief Development Officer
E. John Sebes, Chief Technology Officer

event on: Yahoo or Calagator

I promised to share information on the webcast when it became available.  Here it is:

Government Open Source Conference (GOSCON),  Oregon State University

and the World Bank’s e-Development Thematic Group

invite you to join via live webcast a
videoconferenced Global Dialogue between Portland, Washington DC, Moscow,
Colombo, Dakar, Accra, Kigali and Brasilia on:

The Impact of Open Source Software on Transforming Government

12:00 – 3:00 pm (Washington DC time), October 20, 2008

LIVE WEBCAST: http://www.worldbank.org/edevelopment/live

Preregistration is recommended at the webcast site.

See web site for participating speakers.

Event Abstract: Government transformation and information and communication technology
dignitaries from around the world will convene in person and via video
conference for a Global Dialogue on “The Impact of Open Source Software on
Transforming Government”. The discussion will include 6 countries on five
continents, presenting a range of initiatives, opportunities and experience on a
range topics which are of critical importance to governments everywhere.  This
executive panel represents an outstanding global, non-technical  view of the
impact of Open Source Software based on their direct experience. The workshop
will explore both the business case and real-world applications for open
technology to deliver the next generation of government services. The US has
valuable experience in open source software development, at the federal, local
and academic level. The speakers assembled in Oregon will provide a very rich
base for the policy dialogue with policy makers from our client countries. This
is also a great opportunity for South-South dialogue on this important topic for
governments worldwide.

All materials will be available on the GOSCON web site.

About e-Development Thematic Group

e-Development Thematic Group is a global forum and community of professionals
interested in the role of ICT in development,  open for participation by both
World Bank staff and external clients and partners. The e-TG is hosted by Global
ICT Dept in collaboration with ISG, WBI, PREM, and other partners. Visit us at
http://www.worldbank.org/edevelopment to download materials for this and all
previous e-development seminars (over 120 since 2001). Watch some of the recent
events sponsored by the e-Development Thematic Group if you missed them (with
links to videos, slides, speaker profiles, exclusive interviews, background
materials etc.)

ICT Applications for the Public Sector http://go.worldbank.org/YLBJQROJZ0
Government Enterprise Architecture as Enabler of Public Sector Reform
http://go.worldbank.org/NNEZOTX020
Next-Generation Organizational Models for e-Government
http://go.worldbank.org/2LA3GGGEA0
India’s Emergence as a Global IT Player: The Role of NASSCOM
http://go.worldbank.org/B6DF3R8L60
The Potential of Global Sourcing of Services for Growth
http://go.worldbank.org/QFF0GUTSF0