[open-government] Greetings from Brazil - presenting myself to opengov community

[Everton Zanella Alvarenga]

Dear all,

here is Everton (you can call me Tom). I am a physicist and have been
working as a Web developer in the last years. I have been involved in
various projects related to access to knowledge and I am very
interested in open government initiatives. I like very much some
projects from MySociety and Sunlight Foundation, among others I've
seen, and I want bring some of them to my country, Brazil.

Soon I'm going to travel to Europe to participate of events related to
access to knowledge and programming (here is my schedule
http://tinyurl.com/2011viagem ), so I'm writing this email asking some
help to be put in touch with people involved with open government
initiatives on the places I'm going to (Paris, maybe Brussels,
Florence, Berlin, London, Stockholm, Tallin, Haifa etc.).

I've been participating of a group engaged on civic hacking [1] and at
the moment I'm helping to bring open data and transparency issues at
the City Council of São Paulo - I'm working with a councilman from São
Paulo, Floriano Pesaro, who I've met through the project "Adopt a
councilman" ("Adote um vereador") [2] and is supporting these
initiatives in São Paulo city. Together with some friends from
Transparência Hacker, we want bring workshops and seminar about open
government here at City Council of São Paulo, and discussions for it
are already in progress.

Here in Brazil we still don't have a freedom of information law, but
we are almost there [3] (if some politicians don't mess up it for
their private interests) and some citizens have created a movement
called Brasil Aberto (Open Brazil) [4], as a means of affirming the
right to access information held in the public trust by the three
levels and branches of the Brazilian government.

I hope to talk to some of you soon! (Lucy Chambers, from OKF, is
already helping me to be in touch with some people involved with
opengov)

Tom

[1] Transparência Hacker, a mailing list composed of almost 500
members, such as programmers, journalists and other citizens
interested in civic affairs and technology
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/thackday

[2] More about this project here
http://transparency.globalvoicesonline.org/project/adote-um-vereador
(the wiki is a bit abandoned at the moment)

[3] An article by Greg Michener written today about the situation
http://observingbrazil.com/2011/05/05/impeached-ex-president-pockets-brazilian-freedom-of-information-law/

[4] Letter from São Paulo http://www.brasilaberto.org/petition:en