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The story I am going to tell you
began like so many today
with a person sitting in front of his computer at home
and realising that a great idea could help to change the world
someone called Javier Martinez de Ibarreta
on 16 February 2010
as he read a news item that an administration, a government
was going to use Open Office in
thousands of its computers
it struck him that it would be great to use
the potential of all those computers in
the public interest and for the good of humanity.
Just a short time ago, Javier would have had to make do
with discussing this idea with his friends.
And depending on the contacts that he might have had, even if rather unlikely,
he might have managed to reach the right person with the authority
to implement this idea in an administration.
But Javier already knew about Open Government
and he therefore turned to such a platform to get things underway.
The result
(sorry, I haven´t got the remote control)
The result of this small gesture
is that over 2400 public computers are now part of
the World Community Grid
and reuse this potential along with many other previously underused resources
for scientific research, to look for cures dengue fever or childhood cancer.
It is a small feature, it is a small example
that is part of a much larger and much more important
social change which is Open Government.
It is no technological whitewash to make politicians look ***.
Any politician who thinks so is finished.
But rather it is a real revolution.
It is part of my personal journey, which I have been lucky to experience
in a tiny administration
as political willpower has made it possible
but which can be replicated in any administration around the world.
What is Open Government?
It is a way of doing politics based on three pillars.
Transparency, Participation and Collaboration.
Transparency means that politicians provide information in real time
and always explain the decisions and whys and wherefores in the first person
and backed-up with data
to backup the reasons for those decisions
for example, how they manage budgets
whether or not they are making cutbacks,
how they are managing real spending, and so on.
Participation means that citizens can ask questions
and be interest in absolutely everything
either that the government is working on
or that they want to ask about or are interested in.
They can for example learn about, legislation such as the Transparency Act.
But not only to learn about, but also to be involved in its wording
work with the people drafting the Transparency Act
even before it is approved by the Government´s cabinet.
Collaboration
is listening to all the initiatives irrespective of where they are from.
Which is what we are doing here today
in order to be implemented in any administration and in any government
and when the data are released
the citizens can also be involved as they put forward new ideas, new solutions.
For example, New York City Council
released all the public data
regarding health inspections of establishments
and now there is an application so that you are warned
when you are going to enter a restaurant
if it has been fined for cockroaches, rats or lack of hygiene.
Transparency, Participation and Collaboration
yet in that order
because if we do not have total transparency
we will never be able to collaborate with absolute assurance
and even less co-manage.
They may just seem like three words. But I can assure you that they contain
great potencial,
which is very important to all of us who believe that politics
must change. And it is important for us.
What is Open Government?
Open Government is listening and dialoguing instead of imposing
Open Government is looking for help, asking for help from the citizens
listening to all those initiatives to be able to apply them
as citizens are no longer prepared to
just watch is going on worldwide
but they also try to change it.
Open Government is providing information in real time
and providing all that data, because if information is power
it is now time to return it to citizens, because it is public
because it belongs to them, because it is theirs.
It means losing a little control
to recoup that legitimacy that we have lost
after so many years of deliberate obscurity.
And what I believe is the most important of all
changing the agend
in order to finally put the citizen in the spotlight.
And all of this without the usual middlemen.
Nor press officers, nor the media.
Because who better than to explain a decision than the person who has taken it?
Or who better to propose a solution
than the person affected by the problem.
Therefore it is much easier to govern today
if we all manage to place the citizen at the heart of the Agenda.
Open Government is cutting-edge, it is emerging.
But is only being considered by the large administrations
from the technical point of view, using the indicators
or from the point of view of Open Data.
But what is happening with communication?
That was the nuance I detected. That need.
That is why I created a tool. I did not create a blog or a usual sort of website.
But rather a tool whose main aim
is to connect citizens with politicians directly
without middlemen and only using technology
to bring those two such remote but mutually dependant worlds together
to connect them.
Because politics is generally discredited.
Usually, the citizens are aflter and demand answers thta they are never offered
and they are also unaware of everything the public managers are doing.
And the other hand, politicians
continue with an obsolete model
in a single direction with majjor headlines about grandiloquent decisions.
But therre is a great deal of small print.
In all administrations, there are thousands of public managers
that take political decisions each day
that affect millions of citizens.
And we not aware of that.
There are also platforms created by civil society
or even sometimes created by other administrations
we all know which where citizens can ask questions
and put forward ideas and, great, citizens use them.
Well, but what happens?
Some of the administrations are then incapable of taking
those proposals directly to the person who has to put them into practice.
This tool enables:
Citizens to ask or make proposals where appropriate
to then be forwarded to the politicians.
and in turn to discover the small print of the administration.
And the politicians are able to listen to absolutely everything
and to put their point across in the first person.
So that the small print is understood
we use five maxims
1. Language: clear and non-bureaucratic
i.e. "traslating the official gazette".
2. We see the data, we have seen examples
to show those stories behind them
"we translate Excel tables".
3. Active Listening
how doesn´t matter, a forum, other websites, governmental pages,
inside, outside, it doesn´t matter
where someone makes a proposal
we go through absolutely everything so not to miss anything.
4. Responsibility
we allocate their decision or their topic to each political decison-maker
5. Put a face to the administration to each politician
their photo, their telephone number, their profiles in the social networks
their ge-localisation, their public agenda....absolutely everything.
But they are not just left alone with the tool
we have pressurised the top executives to be seen
and we thaugt them, we have trained them
to use this plain and simple dialogue
and also which are the places that they have to use.
And we have also trained over 70 journalist in the region
so that they know how to delve into this information
and they can tell these stories from different points of view
perfect
but all of which must be true without tampering
as they have the original source
not the cooked-up figures.
All of which is covered by open licences
as we want to share this knowledge
and use the other administrations
that start to deploy the platform or tool that we are using
But...
that does not mean that everything is wonderful, everething is just perfect, that everything has worked out phenomenally
that we are delighted...that it is a job well done...
No. Not at all.
Politicians, even though they belong to a single ideology,
in the same administration,
are logically people who do not behave in the same way
some of them find it harder to apply this way of working to their routine
and we are behind them all the time so they do not overlook it
and we thus pinpoint those that do and those that don´t.
We also asked civil society and journalists
to show or pinpoint those who open their windows
or those who close all doors.
We are sort of "tutors"
but we are hoping that
they will soon be standing on their own two feet.
We are at an 80% response rate
to questions put to us
but we cannot rest on our laurels
as while there is a single answered answer
our work will not be finished.
To pressurise them we have installed a meter that spotlights how long
it takes each politician to reply
and thus, sometimes putting them to shame
we also manage to change things from inside.
Before giving you some figures, I will tell you that we do not compete for user traffic
as we cannot apply the same online logic
in an administration as in a private company.
We are not worried where the dialogue occurs
in other networks as I said before, in any other forum, on any other website.
The important thing is that it occurs
that in just two minutes, a single citizen with the world as a witness
can publish their complaint, their concern, their initiative, their question
without knowing whether or not open government websites exist.
Citizens now have all the tools to be able to choose
to put their initiatives to the public debate
without having to blend in, if they don´t want to
into a mass, collective, political party, trade.
They can choose either to act in a group or acti individually.
Because it is the nuance and the individual
thanks to the Internet, they are also listened to.
But the figures are also good
which shows that the citizens are really interested in what their government does.
We have more than one million hits
more than half a million single users
and you can imagine that the more than 225 proposals
from the citizens cover every possible subject
but I can assure you that they have nothing to do
either with the headlines on the front pages of the papers
or with the press releases that we send from the administrations.
They have proposed, for example, that boxing is banned on public TV
that marijuana is legalised
that the politicians` salaries are cut
and the topics that most interest them
are always Education and Employment.
And within the things that the government reports
are particularly infraestructure and housing.
And they also taken part to help draft more than 50 legal inititatives
A great deal has happened in those two years
that would be very difficult to summarise here now.
but I do want to share an idea.
Despite the paths and worlds that Internet and the new technologies open up for us
also in the administrations
we are clear that citizens and politicians have to
make those journey together.
Internally we have to foster those transparent and proactive attitudes
because if we release data and if we release information
and if we report it before we are asked about it,
we are going to save a great deal of time and many, many resources
the same way as if we explain the initiative right when it emerges.
On the other hand, the degree of confidence of the citizen externally
and there are increasingly many more participative, responsible and committed citizens
is what Open Government measures successfully.
I would like to end by sharing a reflection with you
We are all part of this story,
citizens, traditional civil society
digital citizens, traditional civil society
we all have something to contribute and with which to enrich this narrative
so that we can turn it into something truly historical.
And Bob Dylan put it much better in a song back iin the `60s
of course I haven`t had to traslate it
as other citizens did so before me.
Come senators
congressmen
please heed the call
don`t stand in the doorway
don`t block up the hall
for he that gets hurt
will be he who gets stalled
there`s a battle outside
ragin`
It will soon shake your windows
and rattle your walls
the time they are a-chagin`
and the first one
will later be last
for the times they are a-changing
And then I must add:
And we are as well.
Thank you.