Late DigitalLunch: What would OpenGovernment in Northern Ireland look like?

A date for your diary.  On Wednesday 14th January we’re hosting what we hope will be a vigorous and enlightening online discussion on some of the newly launched Northern Ireland Open Government Network.

We’ll also be joined by Peter Osborne and, I hope, other members of the independent #OpenGov Network.

Guest speakers will include John Barry of Queens University Belfast, Tim Hughes of Involve, and Matilda Murday of Democratic Society, each of whom will make very short presentations on what can be done in slightly different areas of interest.

It will take up the #DigitalLunch format we’ve used successfully in the past to open a better public understanding of what #OpenGovernment could mean in the context of Northern Ireland.

It’s not about setting an agenda for the network, so much as opening the book what might become a functional agenda.

We’re now at stage, and not just in Northern Ireland, where governments and other big democratic institutions need the informed intelligence of wider populations more than ever to help them make good decisions.

And since much of the pressure for these kinds of approaches are borne in by technological (ontological, even) pressures, I don’t think it’s a passing phase. As Bill Gates once famously said…

We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don’t let yourself be lulled into inaction.

You can join us live by video link on Slugger, at my own channel on YouTube, or the event page Google Plus. We are, as ever, hungry for your questions, queries and thoughts. For social media, just tag them with #OpenGovNI and we will pick them up as we go along!

Note too that we’ve set the time for evening deliberately so people can make it after work/ making the tea/ putting the kids to bed*.

*Delete as appropriate