Monday, July 23, 2012

New Book on ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling

A new title was published by NTUA and Bookstars publishing on Governance and Policy Modelling.  Edited by Yannis Charalabidis, Fenareti Lampathaki and Dimitris Askounis, the book is titled "Paving the way for future research in ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling" and contains several chapters on how information technology can assist governance.

Taken from the preface:

"This book is a result of the collaborative effort of several internationally renowned policy scientists, complex system theorists, governance researchers, economists, management science and ICT experts, under the guidance of the CROSSROAD team.

Seville, Athens, Brussels, Lausanne and Samos Island have been welcoming venues for this group, offering opportunities for highly innovative and productive brainstorming. But, clearly, the on-line deliberation toolset deployed by CROSSROAD was the key differentiating factor, engaging several hundred researchers, public sector decision-makers, industry representatives and citizens.

May we all remember this collective experience in the times to come, a little proud that we tried the difficult road: not to just “do the things right”, but to make an attempt towards “doing the right things” for ICTenabled Governance and evidence-based decision making.

For us, for our children, for our society."

You may download the entire book as PDF here: http://crossroad.epu.ntua.gr/files/2010/02/CROSSROAD_Book-vf-allinon.pdf

You may cite this work as following:

Charalabidis Y., Lampathaki F., Askounis. D.: «Paving the way for Future Research in ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling», pp. 1 - 159, ISBN 978-960-6815-92-2, Bookstars Publishing, 2012

Friday, July 13, 2012

The 3rd Samos Summit 2012 on Open Data and Interoperability

More than 80 high-level ICT experts and decision makers from 20 countries participated in the international Samos 2012 Summit on “Open Data and Interoperability for Governance, Industry and Society”, that took place from 2nd  to 6th  July 2012 in  the island of Samos.


The Samos 2012 Summit on Open Data and Interoperability was co-organised by the University of Aegean, the Greek Interoperability Centre of the National Technical University of Athens, the ENGAGE eInfrastructures project (co-funded by the European Commission) and the ENSEMBLE Support Action (under the auspices of the Future Internet Enterprise Systems cluster of DG Connect), in order to foster international cooperation and strive for a new research and practice agenda in open data, collaborative governance, enterprise interoperability and future internet systems.


With an emphasis on Open Data, Interoperability and a new participative governance model for the public sector, the enterprise and within a connected, inclusive society, the Samos Summit was a first-class opportunity to see, interact with and influence cutting-edge European ICT research projects and initiatives.

The Samos Summit participants came from more than 20 countries, representing research and development centres of Google, IBM, Microsoft, Intrasoft International, Engineering, TXT, Whitehall Reply, Athens Technology Centre, Fraunhofer, Poznan supercomputing centre, Cycorp and more.  Representatives from several collective bodies and organizations joined the discussions and workshops of the Summit including W3C, ISA (European Commission unit for interoperability), EGI (European grid infrastructure), the Hellenic Parliament and Greek, Austrian, Slovenian, Spanish, Italian  public sector / eGovernment units.  See the List of Participants for more information.

The key messages of the Summit, as presented in the Samos Declaration, put the emphasis on the following actions:
  • Raise the legal and administrative barriers which prevent the spreading of open data
  • Support research on metadata, core vocabularies and visualization, as new ways of discovering and using open data
  • Promote innovation and entrepreneurship on open data applications for the public
  • Support open data use by science, in a global effort to reach evidence-based decision making on societal problems
  • Promote scientific approaches in solving interoperability issues, and especially the Interoperability Scientific Foundations
  • Strive for open data and interoperability “killer-apps”, in order to illustrate the power of ICT tools towards wider audiences
  • Foster collaboration among scientific communities, industry, SMEs, public sector and citizens, towards an ecosystem where the immense potential of open, interoperable data will be exploited

For more information and all the presentations and workshops of the Samos 2012 Summit visit: www.samos-summit.org

Samos 2012 Participants, outside Karlovassi Town Hall.
(with Uni Aegean students / researchers dancing team)


Participants at the Conference Site - Doryssa Hotel




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