Full coverage of FOCAS 2012, Towards Open and Innovative Governance, is online at www.aspeninstitute.tv. Don’t miss out on the #FOCAS12 twitter stream, a lively backchannel on innovating digital governance and fostering transparency.

A few highlights:  

Toomas Hendrik Ilves is the President of Estonia, which was recently ranked number one in the world for internet freedom by the organization Freedom House. How did this former Soviet state achieve this rating? Estonia’s tech-savvy President explained:

“E-governance does not mean putting a 1040 taxation form into HTML. You have to redo things. You have to make it for the user.  You have to stop thinking in terms of 19th Century bureaucratic rules where everything is on paper. That ends up meaning redesigning government and how you interact with people.”  Watch on Livestream.

Macon Phillips, Director of Digital Strategy at the White House, says that to get citizens more engaged in government, information needs to be presented in more meaningful ways:

“In a day and age when people can Google 'education' and 'Obama' and the White House site comes up pretty high in the search results, we have a responsibility to make sure that the content people find is actually stuff that they can understand and not just fact sheets and press releases." Watch on Livestream.

Juliana Rotich founded Ushahidi, a web-based reporting platform that uses crowdsourced data to create visual maps of real-time information in crisis situations. Through its hard work and global network, Ushahidi has saved tens of thousands of lives. Rotich knows the importance of sharing data, but she wonders about identity, privacy and ownership:

“There needs to be a shift in thinking about personal data. … If I own my data, then what are the incentives for me to share that data with the city so that it can truly be a smart city? … The government needs to perhaps lead in terms of saying ‘you own your own data’ and ‘this is how we can engage with you giving us data and for you to get relevant information back’ … But it has to be a trust relationship where I’m opting in.” Watch this on Livestream.

Reed Hundt was chairman of the FCC during the emergence of Internet as a commercial platform. Hundt embraced the new medium and was the first to the give the Commission an online presence.  Now, Hundt questions whether big data and the capability to individualize information are the next big things for e-government:

“When we talk about government services and combine it with the power of technology and the power of big data, we’re on the edge of being able to have government deliver a suite of services to people that is so impactful of every part of their life that it beggars imagination.” Watch this on Livestream.

Jeff Gomez is an expert in global transmedia storytelling. He traces the roots of movements like the Arab Spring to narratives, and believes that without these narratives, citizens won’t engage in a new world of digital governance. What is needed, in his mind, is a new breed of storyteller who is technically savvy and can work across platforms (i.e. young people). Gomez explains what he calls Transmedia 2.0:

“There is a method for sifting through mountains of data and deriving the information that we need to build an infrastructure around which can be wrapped compelling narrative.  Around the skeleton, we can create interactive stories; we are capable of inspiring with popular storytelling. And popular storytelling, we have seen, can mobilize entire populations.” Watch this on Livestream.

Watch all FOCAS12 clips at www.aspeninstitute.tv.

About C&S
The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program addresses the societal impact of communications and information technologies, and provides a multi-disciplinary venue for considered judgment on communications policy issues. Visit our homepage, www.aspeninstitute.org/c&s. Follow us on Twitter @aspencs and become a fan of the C&S Facebook Page.