Public Intelligence Blog

0Shares

Uncle Sam meets open source with open arms

Collaboration for the common good — what open source is all about

It seems everywhere I look, I see another example of government adopting open source.

Earlier this month, a consortium of public and non-profit organizations launched Civic Commons, a public-private partnership that will help governments share software they have developed. It's a terrific idea that will foster innovation, eliminate duplicate effort, and save money. And it's another great example of the growing adoption of open source software in governments.

Examples of open source in the U.S. government abound. The Smithsonian and Search.USA.gov use Solr/Lucene open source enterprise search. The White House re-launched whitehouse.gov using Drupal. The DoD and the Intelligence Community have proposed an Open Technology Development roadmap “to increase technical efficiency and reduce software lifecycle costs within DoD,” and the DoD has developed forge.mil to “enable continuous collaboration among all stakeholders including project managers, developers, testers, certifiers, operators, and users.” In fact, my own company, Lucid Imagination, is funded in part by In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA, further evidence that open source and government are going hand in hand.

Examples of open source abroad is equally as evident. The EU's Open Source Observatory and Repository provides public administrations with access to more than two thousand free and open source applications and the open source CASPAR (Cultural, Artistic and Scientific knowledge for Preservation, Access and Retrieval) research project is making mounds of data stored in EU archives accessible.

Read Balance of Posting

Tip of the hat to Bob Gourley at LinkedIn.

Phi Beta Iota: While good news, the above is over-stated. Free/Open Source Softwaare (F/OSS) needs a champion with weight, such as Microsoft or IBM or one of the telecommunications giants who sees that the value chain has moved from connectivity to content. There are eight tribes of intelligence, the government is the least important.

2010/09/212010/09/21

Event: 24-26 September 2010 in Louiseville, Kentucky Coffee Party First Convention and Constitutional Convention moderated by Lawrence Lessig

Uncategorized

0Shares

Event Home Page

TUE 21 Sep NEW: Detailed Schedule, Pretty Amazing, Click Here to Read

Meet us in Louisville for the Great American Democracy Meetup and Coffee Party National Convention! We want to reset the national dialogue so that we can address the challenges that we face as fellow Americans instead of partisans in a spectator sport. We want to find ways of restoring American democracy so that we work towards a government by the People, of the People, for the People.

Featured Events:

“Mock Constitutional Convention“ chaired by Lawrence Lessig, Founder of Change Congress & Professor at Harvard Law School and Mark McKinnon, communication strategist for John McCain and George W. Bush. This is a critical response to the “Citizens United” Supreme Court Decision, and other present-day constitutional issues. You can submit and discuss amendments here: http://convention.ideascale.com/

“Across the Political Divide: A Transpartisan Dialogue” a round table moderated by Joseph McCormick

“What can we do for our country?” a round table moderated by Linda Killian

NEW 21 Sep: detailed menu of specific offerings with 25% discount code at end:

Continue reading “Event: 24-26 September 2010 in Louiseville, Kentucky Coffee Party First Convention and Constitutional Convention moderated by Lawrence Lessig”

2010/09/202010/09/20

MakerFaire Africa 2010 Project Showcase

03 Economy, 04 Education, 05 Energy, 07 Health, 08 Wild Cards, Mobile, Technologies

0Shares

Maker Faire Africa is a celebration of African ingenuity, innovation and creation. Here you will find the Makers who showed their work at the 2010 event in Nairobi Kenya. Work ranges from time saving devices for agriculture to alternative energy sources from design with recycled objects to social media applications for mobile phones. Per maker you will find a short synopsis of their work, their contacts details plus a possibliity to collaborate with them.

Terra Weikel from Uganda came with briliant idea on how to improve the digitalization of rural Uganda, and they concluded that the best material would be to use a drum which is readily available. They then converted it into a digital tank (kiosk). He was here to create awareness of the digital drum and inspire its use in other African Villages! To inspire for a better Africa, in terms of digitalization.

The Village Telco is an initiative to build low-cost community telephone network hardware and software that can be set up in minutes anywhere in the world. No mobile phone towers or land lines are required. He was here to create awareness of the product and it entrepreneurial sense! To inspire for a better Africa, in terms of Tele-communication.

Continue reading “MakerFaire Africa 2010 Project Showcase”

2010/09/202010/09/20

Event: 1 Oct DC Why Design Now (Free)

Uncategorized

0Shares

How can we power the world with clean energy? How can we improve the quality of life through health-care innovations? Design has emerged as a powerful tool to help businesses offer ingenious and often disruptive solutions to the world's most complex problems.

Join us as leading thinkers, scientists and designers share their expertise and discuss how design can accelerate innovation and provide efficient and scalable solutions to the most pressing global needs.

This conference is free but space is limited so please register soon.

Phi Beta Iota: Visit the conference web page for details including the list of confirmed speakers. We are entering the era of true cost transparent transactions. Design is the pinnacle of the knowledge profession in a Whole Earth context. This event is enthusiastically recommended and should be extraordinary in nature.

2010/09/202010/09/20

Reflections from Tom Atlee–We Beg One and All to Read and Contribute-and Join Us in Louiseville!

Uncategorized

0Shares

Phi Beta Iota: We beg one and all to read this and to contribute to the Co-Intelligence Institute whatever they can, be it $20 or $250 (our founder's usual contribution). Tom Atlee brought collective intelligence and public intelligence to where it is today. America–and the world–need him vibrant and engaged. PLEASE do what you can for this pioneering citizen, as close as we have to a Founding Father for the future. Below is his latest gift to us; please gift him forward–and it is tax deductible, not that you need that. Tom Atlee is ROOT. Please give. Click Here for 24-26 Sep Coffee Party Convention.

Dear friends,

This will be a very unusual fundraising letter. If you wish to support my work in general, without getting into details, there is information at the end of this email explaining how. If you'd like to hear what I've been doing and what it has been teaching me, read on.

You have not heard much from me much in the last six months. For most of that time I was caring more than full-time for my partner of 24 years, Karen Mercer, who I met on the cross-country Great Peace March in 1986. After three years of cancer treatments of various kinds, she was declared terminal back in April. On Earth Day she joyfully chose assisted suicide at home under Oregon's “Death with Dignity” law — but she didn't die. She emerged from three days in a coma to have more than three more months of eventful, loving life before finally dying in hospice care on July 29, still with my 24/7 engagement. It has been a very intense time for me, in many many ways. You can read the dramatic story, if you want, in the downloadable “Updates” on http://karen.mercer.muchloved.com.

In this letter I want to share several inquiries that I've been exploring for years, which I found greatly intensified during my months caring for Karen, during which I neglected my world-work almost entirely.

Continue reading “Reflections from Tom Atlee–We Beg One and All to Read and Contribute-and Join Us in Louiseville!”

2010/09/202010/09/20

Journal: Third Party Desired by 58% in America + ReCap

Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government

0Shares

face michael ostrolenk — Michael Ostrolenk Recommends

Large Majority of Americans Thinks Country Needs Viable Third Party

By: Jon Walker Monday September 20, 2010 1:03 pm

A large majority of Americans, 58 percent, believe that the country needs a third major party to adequately represent the American people, according to a new Gallup poll. Only 35 percent think the Democratic and Republican Parties do an adequate job representing the electorate.

The desire for a third party is high because currently both parties are unpopular with the American people. A recent CBS News/New York Times poll found that both the Democratic and Republican Parties favorability numbers were negative. Perhaps more importantly, it found that overwhelming majorities disapproved of the job performance of Congressional Republicans and Democrats.

. . . . . . .

The problem is systemic.

Reference: Electoral Reform Act of 2009

2008 ELECTION 2008: Lipstick on the Pig
Review: Grand Illusion–The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny
Review: Running on Empty–How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It (Paperback)

and also:
Continue reading “Journal: Third Party Desired by 58% in America + ReCap”

2010/09/20