[WSIS CS-Plenary] Democracy issues, open source tools

[Steven Clift]

In Geneva I spoke on a side-panel about e-democracy from the civil 
society perspective.  I am tuning back in to the WSIS process and I 
am interested in your comments on WSIS activities promoting the 
proactive use of ICTs in the democratic process and for citizen 
engagement.

Anything interesting or important to note?

Also, I am organizing the International Symposium on Local 
E-Democracy in Minneapolis on July 26-27. This event is actually 
sponsored by the UK Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Help us 
build a solid civil society presence by attending:

     http://dowire.org/localedem

Finally, I recall a number of interested web-based information 
sharing tools/web sites from the first WSIS process that claimed to 
be open source. Are any of them still around/being shared?

In that vein, I'd like to encourage WSIS related groups to consider 
using GroupServer, a new GPL open source *combined* mailing list/web 
forum tool, in order to make your discussions more accessible via RSS 
and the web to the new generation of Internet users who don't use e-
mail lists much (without giving up essentially e-mail posting/reading 
access for all).  The E-Democracy.Org NGO is using the tool and here 
is our take:  http://e-democracy.org/groupserver

Cheers,
Steven Clift
http://e-democracy.org
http://dowire.org   

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