This is a poorly executed photograph of a fellow named Mr. Dylan Jeffrey. I snapped this photo of Dylan delivering the official welcome to the first-ever International Symposium on Local e-Democracy that was held this week right here in the Twin Cities.
Dylan is a Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (OPDM) in the United Kingdom. The OPDM was one of the key sponsors of the symposium. They held the symposium here in the Twin Cities because we are a “hot bed” of innovation in the field of e-democracy, and have been for a decade.
There was great attendance at the symposium from outside the United States. I’d say about half the people I met were from outside the US. This is a photo of Isobel Harding. Isobel is the Head of the Information Society Unit for the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Assemblies and also for North LincsNet in North Lincolnshire. She also was one of the leaders of the Local e-Democracy National Project in the United Kingdom.
Isobel gave a presentation on the status of the National e-Democracy Project in the UK. The National Project is an initiative of the UK national government to innovate and implement e-Democracy tools into local governments all over the country. I first met Isobel when I visited North Lincolnshire in February. She took a couple hours out of her time at the symposium to come with me to a Eden Prairie Council workshop on Tuesday night. She said she enjoyed that. I thought it was pretty good too.
The National Project in the UK has more than two dozen different elements to it. One of the youth-oriented elements is a program to develop e-Democracy games that can be played on phones, computers, and commonly used gaming systems. The idea is to get youth interested in democracy by making it fun and interesting to learn about it.
This is Sarah Welder, a 7th grade student in the UK. She is doing a live demonstration of a game that puts the player in the mode of a City Councilmember trying to please the public and create sound public policy at the same time. That’s a tough balancing act.
These three photos were taken on Day 1 of the symposium which was held at the HHH Center at the University of Minnesota. On Day 2 the symposium attendees jumped on a bus for a tour of the State Legislature’s technology centers at the Capitol and then went down to Northfield for a presentation on city and community weblogs. Northfield citizens (not the city government) have a vibrant community weblog “blogosphere.” Eden Prairie has official City blogs by City officials. Joining me on the panel representing Eden Prairie were two friendly faces:
Fire Chief George Esbensen and Police Chief Dan Carlson
I care about this e-Democracy thing because I am concerned about the current status of our democracy, not only in our state, but in our country as well. I don’t think that we are doing very well in discerning and deciding the public policy issues of the day. I think we can do better. We must do better. The alternatives to democracy are not very good.
But to do better, we need to think and talk; and then think and talk some more. That’s what this symposium was all about. I’m glad I went.
