Satellite events

Open Government & Public Spending @ PDF CEE 2018

Gdańsk, April 25, 2018 (Workshop By Invitation)

Publishing and using open, accessible and timely information on government contracting to engage citizens and businesses in identifying and fixing problems is one of the most impactful innovations in the last decade. Around 35 governments worldwide currently carry out open contracting, half of them implement the Open Contracting Data Standard, while local governments and major cities follow that track.

Public contracting is the bricks and mortar of public benefit, where taxpayers’ money gets converted into schools, roads and hospitals, and other indispensable public goods. It is vital to modernize governments in states and cities to fight corruption, reform markets and foster innovation and entrepreneurship. More effective and transparent procurement through open, clean contracting will be crucial to sustainable development.

E-procurement reforms and digital governance across the region offer an unprecedented opportunity to revolutionize the way public contracting is done from easing processes to creating smart intelligence services for business, central or local governments and others interested. At the heart of all of it is clean and reliable data, user-friendly tools and an engaged community.

On April 25, 2018, Personal Democracy Forum CEE in Gdańsk will host open contracting leaders and stakeholders from the region for a one-day workshop to tap into that potential and talk about opportunities to improve public spending using open government tricks and tools available.

 

Festival of Civic Tech for Democracy: Future City for All

Instytut Kultury Miejskiej, Gdańsk, April 28, 2018

What are the challenges faced by city officials who manage cities on a daily basis? How do activists and non-profit organizations perceive those challenges? To what extent can IT tools created in Boston increase involvement of inhabitants of Łódź? Who are the beneficiaries of IT solutions proposed by business, municipal authorities or activists?  Do we create the city and its infrastructure for already privileged residents? What are the consequences of digital economy increasingly entering urban life? Can we encourage technologically excluded groups to civic activity? How do cities in the world define and deal with the challenges of the future?

Technological progress triggers digital transformation of the public sector, changing the way residents, business and officials themselves “use” the city. The way we understand the idea of Smart City is evolving. The future belongs not only to large IT systems but municipal units cooperating with each other on the basis of the open data concept. Digital maturity means that – within the strategic cooperation – the office becomes an animator of using open data, supports collaboration [co-creation] between different urban units and initiates the involvement of local communities.

The goal of Festival of Civic Tech for Democracy is not only to review international trends in the public innovation sector and to integrate civic tech communities from around the world. We also want to bring together social activists, IT activists and city officials who are open to new solutions for the challenges future cities face. We will study them in a series of diagnostic workshops that will take place in Warsaw, Wrocław, Gdańsk, Gdynia, Katowice and Lublin.

We invite public administration representatives, Polish and international non-governmental organizations, tech journalists, smart city and business sectors representatives to participate in the event.

Due to the short notice speakers and big number of participants we had to introduce some changes to the format of presentations and discussion panels, so apparently we will not have workshops, but two presentations sessions and one panel.
The cooperation catalog will be released in a paper version by the end of May, and will also include a presentation of city challenges in the field of open data.

Free entry! You can find the final agenda of the Festival here.

Organizer:

Instytut Kultury Miejskiej is the partner of the Festival: