The Open Government Directive - A Year Later

On December 8, 2009, President Obama issued an Open Government Directive to direct all Federal Government agencies to "take specific actions to implement the principles of transparency, participation, and collaboration."  A year has passed since this directive and while government agencies have made significant progress, only 17 of the 29 agencies fully meet the expectations set forth in the memo. While the 12 other agencies are making progress, clearly there is more work to do.

In addition, a byproduct of this directive is the release of large amounts of data to the public that has raised several questions related to its value and effectiveness.

• How are companies and organizations using this new government data?
• What challenges are there in aggregating the various data sources?
• What are the policies/barriers to the use of third-party tools to enhance the usefulness of this new information? And is this new openness helping provide citizens with better access and higher-quality information?

The New America Foundation and the Washington DC Chapter of the ACM (DC ACM) will be hosting a panel discussion around these questions, the current state and impact of this directive, and what new challenges are on the horizon.