Obama’s open government guru to speak at NZ Labour public event

US President Barack Obama’s Deputy Chief Technology Officer Beth Noveck will be the key note speaker at a public event to provide input into Labour's policy on open and transparent government.

Labour’s Communications and IT spokesperson Clare Curran said Labour will hold a public event on 28 August in Wellington to bring together ideas generated over the last four months on how to deliver open and transparent government.

“Labour is embarking on its first open policy process, inviting the public to participate in developing its policy on what an open, transparent government might look like.

“The open policy process titled OpenLabourNZ was launched via the Labour MP’s blog Red Alert at the end of April 2010.”
Clare Curran said OpenLabourNZ was an experiment in how Labour could engage with the community, seek their input, build support and use new technologies and methods to develop policy.

“Labour wants to start by developing a policy on open and transparent government,” she said.
“This is new territory for us and we want people to contribute by saying what they think a good policy on open and transparent government would look like.

“To date OpenLabourNZ has attracted hundreds of responses by blogs, twitter and Facebook and direct communication with the Party.

“Labour is serious about being open and transparent. This is a new initiative, but through it we hope to demonstrate that we mean business and will take the policy to the election and into government,” Clare Curran said.

Beth Noveck is also a fulltime law professor at New York Law School, and her professional career has focused on developing technologies that increase participation in democracy. In the Obama administration, Noveck leads the open government initiative at the Technology Office at the White House.

She will appear at the Labour public event via satellite. Further speakers and the venue will be announced shortly.
The public event is free and open to the public but has limited places. We will shortly be announcing the process to register for the event. It will be live streamed so that people in other centres can observe and participate.

About Beth Noveck
Beth Noveck is leading the Obama administration’s open government initiative, where she will focus on incorporating more voices into policy planning. To do this, she has already created several online forums where readers can comment on White House proposals and add their own ideas.

She has been Deputy Chief Technology Officer at the White House since February 2009
She was a Volunteer Policy Advisor to Obama (2007 to 2008); Law Professor, New York Law School (since 2002); Bodies Electric, President and CEO (1999 to 2002).

ENDS

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