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Global Voices, Transparency and the need to understand technology
On April 27th, 2010, I assisted to a lecture from David Sasaki of Global Voices Online (GVO) about “Citizen Media and the Technology for Transparency Network (TNN)". This is a transcript of the notes I took that night, plus a couple of general comments about Citizen Media, Transparency in Government and related topics.
Again on public or private water (this time in Rome)
On February 11th, 2010 a public rally against the complete privatization of Acea took place in Rome. Acea is the partly public company that manages the water distribution system in Rome and other cities of the Lazio region. The purpose of the rally was
Why every citizen should read the Open Government book
Open Government - Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice is a book (DISCLAIMER: I’m one of the authors, see below) that explains how governments and local Public Administrations can use digital technologies to work more efficiently, save lots of taxpayers money and let citizens control what public officers are actually doing. Why is something like this very important for all citizens? Because, as I already explained in the Online Loser Guide, digital technologies and the Internet can be either a huge help to make real democracy happen, or just a new, more powerful system for centralized control.
When and how can Free Software really save public money?
A few days ago, during an email conversation about efficient public services and waste of money in Public Administrations, I had to answer a couple of questions. Since those answers may interest many other people, here they are.
If we all used computers to watch TV...
Italy started the transition from analog to digital TV in mid 2009. Six months later, the transition is still ongoing and causing a lot of hassles, unplanned expenses and, above all, confusion. In a few months Italians found themselves in a situation where, to receive all the channels available through satellites and terrestrial digital TV providers, every TV should be equipped with nine (9!) extra digital decoders!.