For the fifth consecutive year, the World
e-Democracy Forum, organized in Issy-les-Moulineaux, will be rewarding those
who have made a commitment to affecting meaningful political change through use
of the Internet and new technologies. Trophies will be awarded at a ceremony
held during in the French National Assembly on Thursday, October 22nd,
in partnership with the American web portal PoliticsOnline, the Politech
Institute of Europe and Blog Territorial.
The 2009 Award finalists are:
Created in 1996 by Phil Noble, a specialist in
political affairs, PoliticsOnline is the web's oldest political Internet
company. PoliticsOnline has partnered with the World e-Democracy Forum since
its inception and each year publishes its "Top 10 Who Are Changing the
World of Internet and Politics", a list co-written with the help of
internet users themselves, and one of whose members will be awarded the
International e-Democracy Award of the year. www.politicsonline.com
- The Democracy Center,
represented by Jim Shultz, Executive Director (Bolivia)
Over the past decade, the Bolivia-based
Democracy Center has used the Internet to mobilize international organizations
around the plight of those in need in developing countries.
- CLIME, Center for Liberty in the Middle East, represented by
founder Eleana Gordon (USA)
In 2009, CLIME (Center for Liberty in the Middle
East) launched the Online Activism Institute, with the hopes of offering Muslim
women an innovative tool with which to participate in the democratic process.
- DiploFoundation, represented by founder Jovan Kurbalija (Malta)
A specialist offering training in international relations on a global
level, DiploFoundation has prepared over one thousand diplomats for work in the
Internet management sector in the context of an increasingly globalized world.
- EUProfiler,
represented by project manager Alexander Trechsel (Switzerland)
www.euprofiler.eu
2.5 million Europeans have used EU Profiler since its creation, an impartial tool that allowed users to compare their personal political views with those of about 300 European political parties before voting in the 2009 European Parliamentary elections.
- Peter
D. Greenberger, Team Manger “Elections and Issue Advocacy”, Google Inc.
(USA)
www.linkedin.com/pub/peter-greenberger/1/550/853
The online tools that Google offers (YouTube,
Google Maps, Google Docs, Google Ads) were heavily used over the course of the
recent American presidential campaign. Democratic candidate Barack Obama spent
7.5 million dollars integrating these tools into his campaign strategy. Peter
Greenberger informs and educates policy makers and administration officials
regarding the use of these tools in order to make the political process more
accessible to ordinary citizens.
- The
Iranian protesters (Iran)
Perseverance and ingenuity allowed the Iranian President's
opposition to give their movement a level of force and scale unmatched since
the 1979 revolution. They also showed that blogs and social networking sites,
such as Facebook and Twitter, played an undeniably central role in the Iranian
political crisis.
- Nazaha,
the Arab web portal in the fight against corruption, represented by
founder Ibrahim Fahmy (Egypt)
After having created several online tools to
promote democracy and human rights, both in Egypt and in the rest of the Arab
world, Hany Ibrahimi Fahmy created Nazaha, which translates to integrity and
transparency in Arabic, the first Arab web portal in the fight against
corruption.
- Pollitika.com,
represented by founder Marko Rakar (Croatia)
Since its inception in 2004, Marko Rakar's
personal blog, dedicated to the state of economics, politics, and the media,
has been one of the most read in all of Croatia. In 2006, he created the
collaborative blog "Pollitika.com", which has since become one of the
main sources of news and information in his country.
- Joe Rospars and
Obama’s New Media Team (USA)
http://www.bluestatedigital.com/blog/people/joe-rospars
At only 27 years old, he served as the New Media
Director for Barack Obama's presidential campaign and contributed to the online
collection of close to 500 million dollars. He is the co-founder of Blue State Digital, a consulting firm created
in 2004 to help politicians, private companies, and NGOs develop strategies to
bring their services online.
- Twitter
(USA)
Twitter allows people from
around the world to connect and communicate in a free and simple way. Twitter
proved the most useful tool in countering censorship during the Moldavian and
Iranian crises when their respective governments tried to tighten controls on
information and communication.
The Politech Institute is a European Center of
Political Technologies founded in Brussels, whose main goal is to bring
excellence and innovation to the domain of Information and Communication
Technologies in order to advance modern public governance and democracy. In
partnership with IP-Label, Politech rewards the year's most groundbreaking
European initiative. Close to 50 initiatives and websites were analyzed using
two complex indicators that measure innovation, accessibility, content, and
diversity of the tools used to reinforce participative democracy, as well as
the availability and performance of the website in question over the course of
one month. www.politech-institute.org
- cz2009.eu, Portal of the Czech Presidency of
the EU, represented by editor-in-chief Veronika Cvejnova (Czech Republic)
For
its first European Union presidency, in the first half of 2009, the Czech
Republic published a highly interactive website combining opinion studies,
educational models regarding European institutions, current events, and useful
information.
- e-Participation.net,
represented by Daniel Roleff, editor of Politik Digital.de (Germany)
e-Participation.net
is a joint initiative by Politik Digital, a German political web portal, and
British Council, the British cultural agency based in Germany, to create an
interactive database of projects and initiatives whose goal is to reinforce
citizen participation in the political process.
- Group of the Progressive
Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament,
represented by Tony Robinson, head of Internet and Press and
Communications Unit (Great Britain)
The
website of the European Parliament Socialist Group offers a place of debate and
information in web 2.0 style, combining the power of social networks,
multimedia, and podcasts.
- Toute l’Europe.fr,
represented by Jean-Yves Nicolas, Administrator (France)
Touteleurope.fr
became the premier web portal providing information on the 2009 European
Parliamentary elections through full coverage of the election campaign across
all 27 EU countries, as well as through the organization of interactive forums
involving citizens and important officials, such as President Barroso and
various political candidates.
- Voice, represented by
Johanna Schepers, coordinator (Germany)
Giving
Europeans a voice in debates on EU legislation: such is the objective of this
e-Participation project, co-financed by the European Commission. ‘Voice’
introduces new ways for citizens to become more engaged in the legislative
process alongside their MEPs.
Blog Territorial is a
collaborative web portal, a forum for exchange of information, analysis, meetings,
and debates surrounding current events and innovations in communication at the
national level. Blog Territorial is joining forces with the e-Democracy Forum
for the first time to reward the most innovative initiative related to online
citizenship and/or participatory democracy. www.blog-territorial.com
1.
TV Agglo - web TV Montpellier, represented by Stéphane Vincent, General
Manager
http://www.montpellier-agglo.com/
This
video platform allows citizens to ask their elected officials questions
regarding city services that affect their daily lives, in order to become more
familiar with them and with how to better use them. Elected officials then give
a taped response to the questions asked.
2.
Auwwwergne – Blog platform and social networking site for the Auvergne
region, represented by Catherine Henri Martin, Vice President of the Regional
Council.
L'Auwwwergne.com
is a platform for blogs, expression of opinions, and information exchange
backed by a social network (the first in the region). It allows members to
create a profile, add contacts, join groups, and create blogs on topics of
their choice, thus giving a voice to all citizens and establishing a dialogue
between them on various subjects.
3.
Brasiwiki – wiki for the township of Bras-sur-Meuse, represented
by Julien Diry, Mayor.
The
township of Bras-sur-Meuse uses its website as an index and a place of debate.
Most notably, it launched a wiki in June 2009, the Brasiwiki, which encourages
people living in the area to contribute information and advice, especially in
regards to the LUP (Local Urbanization Plan). The township's website also
contains links to two useful and interesting blogs, the Mayor's blog and the
township's blog, both of which are updated on a regular basis in order to
inform and foster dialogue between citizens and their local government.
4.
The 27th region – site tracking innovation in citizenship
Hosted
by the New Generation Internet Foundation, the 27th region is the first agency
for public innovation that allows regions to prepare for the future and to
progressively change the way that they perform their duties. It distinguishes
itself through continued tracking of regional projects and initiatives, through
the proposal of challenges regarding issues central to preparations for the
future of the regions and territories in question, and through ongoing research
of creative, innovative, and citizen-proposed solutions to such challenges.
5.
Place publique – independent, online, information site
Placepublique.fr
is a citizen-based media, a forum for engagement on social issues, and a tool
for participatory democracy. The website's main goal is to contribute to
ethical, scientific, and societal debates through articles and reports,
discussions and projects, expertise and education. The "find an initiative"
toolbar establishes a directory of initiatives (associations, enterprises,
communities, media). An active forum, "my marketplace", offers
regular topics of debate related to current events or controversial themes, and
allows internet users to express their personal opinions regarding the subject
at hand.
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