In Europe, the culture is not so much a start-up culture, but more like a co-creation culture with different parts of society – cities, developers, organisations and civil society in general.  And things may look… and maybe are!… a little bit slower as a result of this approach, but it’s a different way.”

About Esteve Almirall

Esteve Almirall serves as Associate Professor in Esade Business Schoool and UPF (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) focusing his research on Innovation and Innovation Management where he has more than 30 publications on the field. His work has been referenced in HBR and he is a frequent speaker in conferences around Innovation, Smart Cities, Living Labs and Open Data/Gov.

His background is a mix of Management Science (PhD) and Computer Science (MSc, MRes). Esteve is also highly involved in European Projects and EU organizations being Council Member of the ENoLL (European Network of Living Labs) and coordinating/participating in some EU projects on Innovation and Smart Cities, such as Open Cities and Commons for Europe.

About Carles Ferreiro

Carles is the CEO of dotopen, a digital enterprise focused on open innovation particularly within cities.

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Episode links and resources

• Commons4EU website
• ESADE
• dotopen

60-second snapshots

On a co-creation approach:

On the entrepreneur as a change agent for civic innovation:

Commons4EU – explaining Code for Europe and BuB for Europe initiatives through their fellows

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As the deadline for submissions approaches for the News Challenge on Open Government, John Bracken, the Knight Foundation’s Director of Media Innovation shares his observations on the journey so far and provides some insights for making project submissions, as well as how everyone can contribute to this timely Challenge to accelerate better ways that government and citizens can interact.

By putting a focus on and valuing the conversation and engagement around the ideas, our hope and expectation is that… even if you aren’t among the winners… even if you’re coming in and sketching out on a cocktail napkin a tool you would hope to see – the spotlight that we can help to put on the community that we’ve brought together around this contest… will leave your idea better off even if it’s not funded.

About John Bracken

John Bracken is director of media innovation for the Knight Foundation. He oversees the Knight News Challenge, Knight’s prototype fund, its journalism and technology investments. Bracken has over 10 years experience as a philanthropic investor in digital media, media policy, innovation and global internet freedom, having previously worked at the Ford Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation.

Bracken is a frequent presenter at media and technology conferences and serves as an adviser to 1871, a co-working resource for digital startups in Chicago.  A 2009 fellow of Leadership Greater Chicago, Bracken has a masters degree from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Pitzer College in Claremont, California. He writes @jsb, johnbracken.net and at the Knight Foundation blog.

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Episode links and resources

• Knight Foundation News Challenge site and FAQs
• Knight Foundation website
• Challenge Blog posts
  • What you need to know as #newschallenge deadline nears
  • Answers to the 7 most common News Challenge questions

60-second snapshots

On sparking conversations about Open Government:

On how Open Government fits the Knight Foundation’s communication focus:

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• Twitter hashtags: #newschallenge #opengov #opendata #gov20

Ahead of taking formal applications, an “inspiration phase” has been launched for the 2013 Knight News Challenge. Some $5 million of Knight Foundation funding will be announced in June for innovative projects around Open Government. Amid much talk (and much tech) focused on more open, transparent, connected governments – as well as the emergence of the 58-nation Open Government Partnership – this Challenge program aims to enable projects that in the broadest sense foster better communication in support of the Open Gov movement.

We hear from Chris Sopher, Project Manager for the 2013 Knight News Challenge, about the Challenge goals and how the inspiration phase will help potential participants to shape their submission ideas through a new online space developed with OpenIDEO.

What are the ideas in Open Government that can help build the field, can help explore new ideas, new approaches to trying to engage people in Government or inform them about what’s happening in their community in a new way?

The Knight News Challenge is international and open to submissions from governments and public sector agencies as well as civic innovators, private sector and non-profit organisations. If you’re considering a pitch, don’t miss this episode!

About Chris Sopher

Chris Sopher is project manager on Knight Foundation’s Journalism and Media Innovation team. He has written and spoken around the world about young people’s engagement with news and civic life through his project Younger Thinking.

Prior to Knight, Chris researched digital media and public policy at the Emerging Media Research Council and helped found the national college mentoring nonprofit Strive for College. He earned a bachelor’s in public policy analysis from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is a Morehead-Cain and Truman Scholar.

Feature image courtesy Joichi Ito

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Episode links and resources

• Knight Foundation News Challenge site and FAQs
• Knight Foundation website
• Blog post about why Knight is doing the Open Government challenge
• Blog post: An opportunity for massive reinvention
• News Challenge winners from each of the three rounds in 2012: Networks, Data, Mobile

60-second snapshots

On framing Open Government:

On what the Knight Foundation is hoping to achieve from the Challenge:

On making public information useful as a key focus area:

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• Twitter hashtags: #newschallenge #opengov #opendata #gov20

Jake Dunagan, IFTF’s Research Director talks about the Connected Citizens program, and why this is an important theme to explore.

This idea of civic technologies and Government 2.0 and new models of citizen engagement using networked technologies filters through a lot of the work we’ve done at the Institute, because it’s such an important thing that’s happening – this moment of change when a new level of citizen and government relations is happening.

Given the range of ways that citizens can now participate to shape the public sphere – hackathons, city camps, policy camps, etc – Jake sees gamification as being part of this “ecology of invention” and that the idea of using a game-based approach is becoming less of an inhibitor for governments.

I think that minds are changing on that – I think the word ‘game’ doesn’t scare as many people as it once did… game is really just a proxy word for engagement.

About Jake Dunagan

Jake Dunagan is the Research Director for the Institute For the Future, with a particular focus on the accelerating transformations of individuals, culture, and governance. In his research, Jake explores how societies are adapting to the Neurocentric age, a time of unprecedented ability to view and modify the mind. Recently, he has written and lectured on comprehensive cognitive design, judicial foresight, kids’ technologies, neuroscience and the ocean, alternative energy futures, social media, and the future of work.

Jake also designs artifacts, games, immersive experiences of future worlds, and produces guerilla public engagement projects that inject the future into the mental ecology of the present.

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Episode links and resources

• Institute For The Future
• Connected Citizens game

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Civic innovator and hackfest vetern Mark Headd joins Gov20 Radio for an in-depth conversation about mobilizing and sustaining civic innovation: hacking, start-ups and what Governments can do to encourage local action.

In 2011, you really started to see independently-organized events taking place, where there were groups of civic-ly-minded hackers in these cities saying ‘We want to do something to give back to our cities.’

About Mark Headd

Mark is a writer, speaker and thought leader on communication technologies and open government. He currently works as a Developer Evangelist for Voxeo Labs. He holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, and is a former adjunct instructor at the University of Delaware teaching a course in electronic government.

He served for three years as the chief policy and budget advisor for the State of Delaware’s Department of Technology and Information. He has also served as Director of the Delaware Government Information Center and as Technology Adviser to former Delaware Governor Thomas Carper.

Mark has built open government applications for the District of Columbia, the Sunlight Foundation, the New York State Senate, and the cities of New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Baltimore and Philadelphia.

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Episode links and resources

• Civic hacking events in Baltimore and Philadelphia
• Mark’s Civic Innovations blog

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We interview Chicago’s new CTO, IBM veteran John Tolva about bringing innovation and emerging technologies to his new role.  John talks about how his IBM background is shaping his thinking and approach to ‘smart city’ innovation at a city level, and shares with us some of the upcoming initiatives in Chicago.