[okfn-discuss] CNET: Activists call for a mashup-friendly Recovery.gov

Tue Jan 27 22:15:36 UTC 2009

Jed Sundwall from NetSquared pointed us to this and (quite rightly!)
said it would be right up our street:

   Activists call for a mashup-friendly Recovery.gov
   http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-10150699-46.html

The article also linked to this event from December 2008 at CATO
Institute, for those of you who hadn't seen it:

   Just Give Us the Data! Prospects for Putting Government Information
to Revolutionary New Uses
   http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=5475

<quote>
Featuring Ed Felten, Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs
and Director of the Center for Information Technology Policy,
Princeton University; Gary D. Bass, Founder and Executive Director,
OMB Watch; Jerry Brito, Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center at
George Mason University; Moderated by Jim Harper, Director of
Information Policy Studies, Cato Institute

For all the change information technology has brought to society, the
government sector lags behind in part because access to good data is
lacking. A stable of private, non-profit, and volunteer efforts
promise revolutionary change once they can access standardized,
structured, and open government data. President-Elect Barack Obama
made transparency a signature issue in the Senate, and talk of a
"chief technology officer" in his administration often turns to
whether that role might be as much a "chief transparency officer" What
are the possibilities for open government data? What are the needs of
the data user community? And what are the impediments to getting the
data out there so that revolutionary change can get underway
</quote>

An MP3 recording of the event is available for download:

  http://www.catomedia.org/archive-2008/cpfa-12-10-08.mp3

J.