About the Popolo ProjectInternational open government data specificationsJames McKinneyJM_e2b8efbe-8f35-11e5-8d2f-c598a4e71a1aPopolo Usersg0v g0v.tw is an online community that pushes information transparency, focusing on developing information platform and tools for the citizens to participate in society. Substituting the “o” with “0″ in gov, the new “g0v” not only stands for rethinking the role that the government plays from the bottom up, but also represents the world view of 0 and 1 in the digital natives generation. Based on the spirit of open source, g0v cares about freedom of speech and open data, writing code to provide citizens the easy-to-use information service. The transparency of information can help citizens to have a better understanding on how the government works, to understand the issues faster and to avoid media monopoly, so they can monitor the government more efficiently, and become involved in actions and finally deepen the quality of democracy.GranicusCurrently, Granicus manages the world’s largest and most reliable legislative content network—containing more than 5 million government media files and public records and maintaining a 99.98% uptime track-record. We also have 63,000 government users currently leveraging our technology to successfully run their day-to-day government information tasks including webcasting public meetings, managing and delivering legislative information, collaborating with citizens, and more.KohoVolit.euKohoVolit.eu is a civic association (“občanské sdružení” in Czech), which aims to support democracy. This is primarily being done by developing and operating of the KohoVolit.eu website and our projects. KohoVolit.eu strives to increase awareness of citizens, strenghten the watchdog of elected representatives and boost openness of data, using many cmodern technological tools.mySocietyWe are a not-for-profit social enterprise. We are based in the UK, where we run a number of projects designed to give people the power to get things changed; we also work internationally to support partners who deploy our technology in countries around the world. This work is partially supported by providing software and development services to organisations that can benefit from our experience in civic technologies.Open Civic DataAs of October 2014, there are 48 enacted Open Data Policies and over 480 data portals across the United States at the federal, state and local level. There is a clear and demonstrated need for this data, as well as a willingness by governments to provide it. But the way that information is published can make a huge difference in its reusability by other parties. In order to make this data as usable and accessible to as many people as possible, we've launched an effort to provide guidance on how to publish information regarding some of the most common entities in civic data: people, organizations, events and bills. These elements form the backbone of civic participation, government oversight and accountability. By standardizing how these elements appear in local data, the ability of technologists to use this data is greatly magnified. Standardization will also allow for comparisons of datasets across city, county and state jurisdictions which assists advocacy groups, governments and journalists. Open Civic Data is centered around creating unique identifiers for the types of entities mentioned above. Tracking people or organizations across datasets, or even across different years of the same dataset, can be difficult when only names are used. For instance, in the United States House of Representatives, there are two congressmen named Mike Rogers. Tracking the votes or actions of these congressmen would be difficult for constituents if each one did not have a unique id. That identifier is used when reporting other information on the congressmen, making it clear which one is being referred to.Open NorthWe create websites to promote government transparency and public participationOpenpolisOpenpolis is an independent association founded in 2006 and jointly owned by hundreds of people. At Openpolis we develop and implement projects to enable free access to public information on political candidates, elected representatives, and legislative activity thus promoting transparency and the democratic participation of Italian citizens. Every day thousands of people access our web platforms in order to get or to supplement information on what elected representatives are aying, what laws they are proposing and how they are voting. The information is originally made up of public data extracted from Italian government websites, a wealth of information available for free to everybody, citizens and the media, supporting a diverse number of activities from parliamentary monitoring to data-driven journalism. Openpolis has rapidly turned into a civic observatory on Italian politics, daily analyzing the complex mechanisms that form Italy’s present and future, allowing experts and ordinary people to shape their own view. We are part of an international network that promotes open government and our work is made more effective thanks to the constant comparison with other similar initiatives and to the direct contribution of many individuals who have chosen to actively participate into the political and public life of their country and that every day, through the Internet, redefine the very concept of democracy.PoplusOrganisations all over the world are holding governments to account, challenging corruption, and demanding the right to transparency, and they are using digital technologies to do so. Why should every organisation have to write their software from scratch? By sharing code, we can make things quicker and easier, freeing up time for the important things.Sinar ProjectThe Sinar Project is an initiative using open technology and applications to systematically make important information public and more accessible to the Malaysian people. It aims to improve governance and encourage greater citizen involvement in the public affairs of the nation by making the Malaysian Government more open, transparent and accountable.Sunlight FoundationThe Sunlight Foundation is a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that uses the tools of civic tech, open data, policy analysis and journalism to make our government and politics more accountable and transparent to all. Our vision is to use technology to enable more complete, equitable and effective democratic participation. Our overarching goal is to achieve changes in the law to require real-time, online transparency for all government information, with a special focus on the political money flow and who tries to influence government and how government responds. And, while our work began in 2006 with only a focus on the U.S. Congress, our open government work now takes place at the local, state, federal and international levels.Texas TribuneThe Texas Tribune is the only member-supported, digital-first, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans -- and engages with them -- about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.Popolo Specification DevelopersPopolo reuses specifications from:W3CThe World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards. Led by Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and CEO Jeffrey Jaffe, W3C's mission is to lead the Web to its full potential.IETFThe mission of the IETF is to make the Internet work better by producing high quality, relevant technical documents that influence the way people design, use, and manage the Internet.Dublin Core Metadata InitiativeThe Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) supports shared innovation in metadata design and best practices across a broad range of purposes and business models.GeoNamesThe GeoNames geographical database covers all countries and contains over eight million placenames that are available for download free of charge.... organizations ... spend less time transforming and modeling data and more time applying it to the problems they face._e2b8f1e4-8f35-11e5-8d2f-c598a4e71a1aTo define data interchange formats and data models enabling organizations to apply data to the problems they face._e2b8f2f2-8f35-11e5-8d2f-c598a4e71a1aReusePrinciples: * Reuse prior work unless it sacrifices consistency or clarityCompactness* Keep the specification small by making the models flexibleFlexibility* Plan for imprecise and uncertain dataActivity-Centered DesignActivity-Centered Design (ACD) focuses on the activity context in which individuals interact with your product. Instead of analyzing specific goals and tasks, ACD focuses on the analysis of meaningful, goal-directed actions supported by tools and artifacts in a social world. The Wikipedia article about Activity Theory says: The goal of Activity Theory is understanding the mental capabilities of a single individual. However, it rejects the isolated individuals as insufficient unit of analysis, analyzing the cultural and technical aspects of human actions.Civic SoftwareSupports th development of reusable open source components that implement the specifications, making it easier for civic developers to create civic software_e2b8f400-8f35-11e5-8d2f-c598a4e71a1aCivic DevelopersActivitiesDesign for Activities, Not Individuals_e2b8f50e-8f35-11e5-8d2f-c598a4e71a1aDonald NormanAs Donald Norman says in Human-Centered Design Considered Harmful: The more something is tailored for the particular likes, dislikes, skills, and needs of a particular target population, the less likely it will be appropriate for others.Most products support activities underpinned by collaboration and sharing. Designing for individuals may actually be harmful because these activities reflect ongoing transformations of artifacts, individuals, and social interactions. Focusing on individuals might improve things for one person at the cost of others. 2015-11-19http://www.popoloproject.com/OwenAmburOwen.Ambur@verizon.net