The Power Of Open

“The Power of Open” was one of several OGP launch events held at Google’s New York Offices on September 20, 2011. The event kicked off with remarks from U.S. Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs Maria Otero, General Comptroller Office; Minister Jorge Hage from Brazil (the OGP Co-Chairs), Alfred Spector (Google) and a keynote by President Aquino of the Philippines.  There was also a fascinating morning panel discussion with Dr. Mo Ibrahim (Mo Ibrahim Foundation), Karin Lissakers (Revenue Watch Institute), Dr. Bitange Ndemo (Kenyan Ministry of Information and Communications) and Sir Tim Berners-Lee (Worldwide Web Foundation) about the state of the global transparency and accountability movement, moderated by Esther Dyson. The remainder of the day included a “How to” Alley, where experts from civil society, industry and government presented concrete case studies, took questions and provided hands-on advice on 9 key open government challenges, and a panel on how to begin thinking about measuring the impact and effectiveness of open government efforts as governments, academics and practitioners. The entire event was live-streamed, and the majority of expert participants—government, civil society and private sector—were interviewed one-on-one about their own open government efforts and what they see as OGP’s greatest potential contributions to the global movement.  Examples of interviews you can find here include: the Accountability Initiative (India), McKinsey, the UK Cabinet Office Transparency Team, David Eaves (Canada), Government of Indonesia, World Resources Institute, Development Seed, Center for Economic Governance and AIDS in Africa (CEGAA), Revenue Watch Institute, the International Budget Partnership, Socrata, Center for Technology in Government, Janaagraha (India),  Citivox (Mexico), Esfera (Brazil), Random Hacks of Kindness, MySociety (UK), Sunlight Foundation, and Canada Health Infoway. We see OGP as a new way to engage a large and diverse group of countries in a fresh conversation about governance challenges that have stumped countries for decades. We hope these interviews will help strengthen the growing global network of open government practitioners and connect suppliers of expertise with those who are most eager to benefit from it.