By Dan Jellinek
The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was set up by the United Nations 2005 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis to provide a global framework for all stakeholders – including governments, business, Parliamentarians and civil society – to discuss internet policy and governance issues.
It is a non-decision-making body, working not ... Read More
Archive for May, 2010
Battle for Future Governance of the Internet
Monday, May 31st, 2010Coalition Cuts Becta, Web Institute But Boosts Open Data
Monday, May 31st, 2010Becta, the UK government’s agency for information and communications technology in education, is to be closed as part of the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government’s plans to save an initial £6.2 billion through cuts in non-front-line public services.
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced the closure, which he said will save £80 million, last ... Read More
Online Debate Experiment To Unite 10,000 Random Citizens
Monday, May 31st, 2010An innovative pilot project to involve 10,000 randomly-selected German citizens in political debate and policymaking, one of the largest programmes of its kind ever undertaken, was launched this month.
BürgerForum (Citizens’ Forum) 2011 is aimed at devising ideas to promote and strengthen social cohesion and equal opportunities in an increasingly diverse society. A total of ... Read More
Report: ‘Goverati’, Or The E-Democracy Delusion
Monday, May 17th, 2010By Dan Jellinek
The e-democracy sector has so far failed to have a significant impact on the development of modern democracy, Andy Williamson, Head of Digital Democracy at the Hansard Society in the UK, told this month’s annual EDEM10 conference at Danube University Krems, Austria.
“I want to talk about why we’ve failed, and we ... Read More
Future of NHS IT Programme Thrown Into Doubt
Monday, May 17th, 2010The formation of the UK’s new coalition government has thrown into doubt the future of the NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT), with both of the governing parties – the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats – having opposed aspects of the programme in their election campaigns.
Introduced by the former Labour government, the NPfIT ... Read More
New Draft Access Standard Embraces Website Customisation
Monday, May 17th, 2010Personalisation of website accessibility, including customising tools and offering different versions of sites to suit individual needs, should be considered for some specialist websites such as social networking platforms, according to the latest draft of a British standard on web accessibility.
The second draft of BS 8878 ‘Web accessibility – Code of practice’, developed by ... Read More
New Digital Elite Threatens E-Democracy Ideal, Academic Warns
Monday, May 17th, 2010Moves to open up the political decision-making process using online tools could simply lead to a new ‘e-politics divide’ whereby old forces of influence are entrenched in new ways, a Spanish academic has warned.
Ismael Peňa-López, lecturer at the School of Law and Political Science, Open University of Catalonia, told this month’s EDEM10 conference at ... Read More
Goodbye to Politics for Derek Wyatt, ‘Fastest Emailer in the West’
Monday, May 3rd, 2010By Richard Sarson.
Whatever its composition, the new UK Parliament will lack one of its most passionate IT champions of recent years with Derek Wyatt’s decision not to stand for re-election this week.
When Wyatt entered Parliament for Labour in 1997, he was already an early adopter of email, sending about five a week to ... Read More
