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Posts na categoria Votenaweb
We are among the 17 successful cases of Citizen 2.0
Last year we were approached by RedCut, a Swiss company focused on increasing the IQ of the world through games. Its researchers were looking for projects and companies that encourage greater citizen participation. The idea was to list successful cases of what they call Citizen 2.0. The company reached 17 examples around the world that could provide inspiration for new civic engagement projects. And for our pride, Votenaweb was included.
According to the researchers, “this evolution towards new communication patterns provided governments with an opportunity to function in a more innovative, engaging and cost-effective manner. In recent years, many businesses have integrated tools such as Facebook and Twitter in their marketing efforts to reach customers more directly. In a government context, such tools can be similarly used to engage with citizens with the goals of collecting their feedback and ideas, making them aware of public services at their disposal and reaching out to broader audiences through non-traditional channels.” Companies and goverments are not the only agents of thoses changes. “Social media has also returned power to citizens. By providing inexpensive and widely-available tools that make it easier to organize and voice challenge, new technologies have contributed to empower citizens while improving governments’ responsiveness and accountability. A new citizen is emerging.”
Still in the research, RedCut cites initiatives that were beginning their careers and could be exploited as cases in the future. And once again, we are on the list with the Movimento Minas.
The search result, the Citizen 2.0 – 17 exemples of social media and government innovation, you can download here.
The list of projects is as follows:
SeeClickFix Ushahidi Manorlabs Vancouver Greenest City New York Simplicity Idea Market GovLoop Yammer Experience Grand Rapids Tukayfe US Embassy Jakarta Zonability Culture Now YouTown Localocracy Votenaweb PopVox EveryBlock
Por Mari Fonseca
Webcitizen the UN and at Barcelona
Being a speaker at the Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington was great, as we have already said here. What we didn’t mention were the incredible doors the event opened for us since then.
In Washington, two of Webcitizen’s directors – Fernando Barreto and André Blas – were contacted by some UN folks that were there. They had really enjoyed Vote on the Web and were particularly impressed by its friendly design and its appeal for a younger audience. This conversation ended with an invitation: they wanted us to fly to New York in the following week to present Vote on the Web in the UN headquarters. Fernando and André did just that.
A group of over ten people, working for several different divisions of the UN, awaited them. They loved Vote on the web. So much so that they made a last minute invitation for us to present the project in Barcelona, between the 21st and the 23rd of June at an event called “Citizens in Development Management and Public Governance for the Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals”. The schedule of the event was closed already, but they opened it again just to include Vote on the Web.
The meeting in New York was amazing. Not only it made the trip to Barcelona possible but we talked about several exciting possibilities of partnership with the UN – they want us to help them find innovative webcitizenship projects all over the world. We’ll write more about these possibilities when they become a little bit more concrete.
Now Webcitizen is packing for a trip to Barcelona, in close contact with the UN headquarters in New York while we process the demands we brought from Washington.
Votenaweb at Gov 2.0 Expo
Watch Voteontheweb’s presentantion at Gov 2.0 Expo 2010. Citizen André Blas on stage.
And here you can watch other presentations at Gov 2.0 Expo.
Bringing citizens together
Nice to meet you, visitors from outside Brazil!
Exceptionally this post will be written in English (desculpa aí, amigos brasileiros!). Let me explain why:
This week, on May 26th, we’ll give a talk at the Gov 2.0 Conference in Washington DC, which is really really cool. We’ll be there introducing the American public to our project Votenaweb.com, which will soon be launched in other 4 countries! We’ll ask people there at the conference to visit our website. So we thought it would be polite to receive them with a post in English. Isn’t it cute?
Let me tell you then who we are. We’re a company created only a bit more than a year ago, to use technology to create civic engagement and – why not – make the world a better place. From then on we did so many things that it feels like we’ve been working for decades! We were among the people who brought TED to Brazil – we curated and organized the TEDxSP conference last November. We edit a cool magazine on values called Gotas – the first issue discusses transparency, the second one wants to make a concrete impact on a neighborhood. We are also about to launch a very cool and fun website called Duelo Tube, which lets youtube videos fight with each other! And we work for a state government (the state of Minas Gerais) providing information services to the public. Not to mention a hundred other projects we’ve been dreaming about.
Thanks for passing by. I hope you come back one day. If by any chance you need a hand from passionate people in Brazil, just let us know.
Por Denis Burgierman
