Session host: Hanna Niemi-Hugaerts (Forum Virium Helsinki)

Time and place: Check the eagenda http://bit.ly/okf-convention_agenda

Description

Open Cities manifesto (draft version: http://avoinkaupunki.fi/) will be presented at the Convention. Looking at the manifesto as the goals we are working towards, how can we take this work further? In the States different actors in the Civic Tech movement have branded themselves quite well and provide tools and materials not only for developers but for other stakeholders in this domain: decision-makers and citizens (e.g. http://brigade.codeforamerica.org/pages/openimpact, http://openplans.org/, ) In Finland it seems that the activities are spread amongst project work (e.g. CitySDK, Commons4EU, Open Cities and many many more), activists and researchers. There is a need for a more unified message that anyone can understand and hopefully also agree with, whether they are developers or not. Call for action should be clear and ways to move forward introduced for all stakeholder groups. When aiming at open cities, is their need for more structured activities to strengthen the message and avoid overlapping? If so, how should organise ourselves, communicate about our vision and fund the needed activities? Could OKF Finland play some kind of role in taking our message to the cities?

This theme will also be addressed at the Future Everything Summit of Ideas & Digital Invention in March http://futureeverything.org/, so it would be great to take some of our results and share them there.