Good news: sir Tim Berners-Lee convinced the British Gov to release its data for the public to use (thus spake BBC). data.gov.uklaunched in September; as I write it sports 2,879 datasets, and counting (in fact no one knows exactly how big is the mountain of data the British government – and all governments really – is sitting on). Developers seem interested: there’s already 29 apps running in those data, including the pretty spectacular Cyclestreets. The Mayor of London Boris Johnson wants to play too: he’s announced the opening of a digital warehouse with an initial 200 datasets relevant for the capital.

I find it hard to overestimate the impact of this move. Not only for the myriad of services that become possible, but also because it builds a place where hackers and civil servants are allowed – and indeed must – interact. In so doing, it facilitates the “coming together” of two cultures, the administration and the internet culture, whose alliance can really be a powerful force for modernity and civilization building, like I wrote after Wikicrats.

What about us Italians? It would be interesting to hear the opinion of some of those digital civil servants out there…

(Hat tip: Alberto D’Ottavi)

Kublai, the Italian central government’s first (or at least one of the first) government 2.0 project, has quickly gained a certain international visibility. After the two showcases with the European Commission (EUPS20 and Wikicrats) and the French exchange of ideas, last week it was the World Bank, following up on an interview I had given to the NYC-based blog Betterverse

As it becomes clear that the Internet is great at producing public goods, the conversation on e-government 2.0 goes global. Ideas circulate smoothly among us Europeans (the EUPS20 group, or Headshift, recently acquired by an American company), Americans (Sunlight Foundation) and Asians (Futuregov), and it seems there is a good deal of mutual trust out there. Maybe there is hope.

The Wikicrats report is online. Wikicrats is an innovative initiative to bridge the gap between the hacker scene and European technology policies, launched by Bror Salmelin, a senior European Commission – DG Tech officer, and interaction designer Nadia El-Imam, who authored the report as well. They even invited me to the workshop of the same name at Reboot11, as I related here.

From Reboot, besides a healthy immersion in the web’s countercultural matrix, I brought back good news: it can be done. The gap between the culture of the European Commission, that designs policy technology in this continent, and that of the producers and advanced users of technology can actually be bridged. I think so because the Reboot community, which kind of stands for the most hacktivist and tech-savvy part of society, showed a clear interest for Wikicrats, the “European” session on technology policy designed by Nadia El-Imam and Bror Salmelin: participation was strong and very diverse. The session produced many interesting comments and at least one good idea, building a resource list of civil servants that share – or at least are friendly to – the Reboot Culture.

For this coming together to really happen we will need time, patience and a radical revision of the narratives. I keep being taken by surprise by how dismissive many civil servants are of their own culture. Tito, for example, keeps saying “We are boring, we use obsolete tools, we don’t get results.” Obsolete tools? Nah. Tito has a PhD at MIT, whereas a lot of people out there can boast little more than a cool Twitter profile. No results? I don’t think so. Public administration gave us free education, water pipes, railways. Even the internet is a project of a government agency! Hacker culture is great, but, with all due respect, it still has to produce any comparable results. For me, public administration is fascinating as a culture: ancient, powerful and mysterious. Its artifacts get me thunderstruck, wondering “How did they do that?”, like for the pyramids in Egypt.

So, what I would like to see is free spaces like Wikicrats, where the hacker culture and the public administration culture can explore each other with mutual respect, and try to do stuff together. At the very minimum it will mean a healthy breaking free from self-referentiality, that cultural poison, as David pointed out. And if a synthesis between them could be achieved… well, then humanity would actually get a chance to tackle its global challenges.

Tra gli eventi tecnologici a cui ho partecipato Reboot è il più vicino alla cultura internet originale. Radicalismo cognitivo, richiami allo yoga e allo zen, Djs, spazio giochi per i bambini, feste interrotte dall’arrivo della polizia (l’anno scorso): si sente benissimo l’origine controculturale della scena hacker. E i grandi vecchi come Dave Winer o David Weinberger (entrambi presenti: il secondo ieri ha affrontato con una passione quasi fisica il tema della moralità e della cyberutopia, nientemeno) hanno uno status simile a quello degli ex partigiani nell’Italia degli anni 60: hanno un prestigio indiscusso, sono circondati di grande affetto e rispetto, e in virtù di questo si possono permettere posizioni più radicali e innovative di chiunque altro. Non so se la mia generazione riuscirà a produrre pensatori altrettanto influenti in questa cultura. Non credo. Meglio tenerci stretti questi.

That between Nadia El-Imam and Bror Salmelin is a really unlikely alliance. She’s an Afro-Swedish interaction designer in her 20s, rooted in the hacker culture and suspicious towards large public bureaucracies; he is a Finnish senior officer at the European Commission in his 50s, technology expert (he had an important role in the birth of the Living Lab movement) and with a very institutional role. Despite many language differences, the two managed to understand (somewhat) and respect each other, and together they conceived and deployed Future building for wikicrats, a really innovative initiative: rather than setting up their own Brussels event, the Commission launched a workshop within Reboot – that, for people unfamiliar with it, is an event of the international hacker community started in 1998, where you can rub shoulders with people like Howard Rheingold, Tim O’Reilly and Dave Winer. The workshop’s goal is to share a new way of thinking about technology policy, that takes the best from both the governance culture (accuntability, impartiality, inclusivity, orientation towards the common good) and the hacker culture (sharing. radical transparency, meritocracy, autonomy).

They invited people that, with a few exceptions, are not technology policy experts. They are people just like you and me, who create or use technology; they are very diverse for culture, personal history, profession and interests. They are also interesting people. Gianluca Dettori is a venture capitalist; Robin Chase is an entrepreneur interested in transport; Amelia Andersdotter is a key figure in the Swedish Pirate Party; Elvira Berlingieri is a digital law expert; I should be speaking for the creative world (pretty tall assignment); Freek van Krevel works at the Commission, and together with David Osimo he is only professional technology policy expert.

I expect that, interacting within a context of shared values, these people acquire new metaphors to think about tech policy through the people who do it and who are impacted by it. Civil servants say “hi-tech firms”, and they think of Economics 101 models mashed with neoliberal rhethoric; well, these models are light-years distant from the people who actually build companies, and interacting with Robin and Gianluca might help amending, deepening or downright discarding them. Similiarly, many hackers think of “Eurocrats” as some kind of grey trolls obsessed with the shapes of bananas; and they have no idea of the real interest and – yes – ideals of people like Bror and Freek. Participants to FBFW can act as personae for each other. Its personal approach should help this, and I really hope it could enhance mutual understanding across tech policy stakeholders.

Knowing a little the stiff-upper-lip style favoured oy the European Commission, this is really a giant cultural leap. We’ll see how it goes. For now: kudos Nadia and Bror. We need more stuff like this IMHO.

Tag: wikicrats
Twitter hashtag: #wikicrats
Livestream URL: www.ustream.tv/channel/wikicrats-at-reboot11