e-Democracy Conference 2008 - presentations available!

eDemocracy conference 2008: Opportunities for Citizen Participation in an Information Society, Introduction of a new participation tool: TID+
5 June, 2008, Press Room of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia

This year we touched upon the opportunities ICT and the Internet provide for citizens to take part in the policy making process and to have a say in political decisions. We introduced the new governmental participation portal OSALE (www.osale.ee) which opens a new way for Estonian people to express their opinion. We also presented a new participation tool, TID+, which, with support of the European Union, is at present being developed and which will be made available to everyone. TID+ is based on the experiences with the Direct Democracy Portal TOM that has been in use in Estonia since 2001. So, the Estonian experience in public participation is about to enter an international arena.

The conference further focused on an analysis of Estonian e-voting experiences and gave an overview of future perspectives, plans and developments. One exciting prospect in that respect is the emergence of m-voting project.

We heard expert opinions in a panel discussion on whether and to what extent online participation and the New Media influence politics and shape democracy.
 
CONFERENCE AGENDA AND PRESENTATIONS           

The conference was organised by e-Governance Academy together with the State Chancellery and Electoral Committe and is financed by European Commission.

For further information, please turn to either Liia Hänni (liia@ega.ee) or Nele Leosk (nele@ega.ee ) .