Another timely report from Dr. John Ohab.

Hooray! October is Energy Awareness Month, a national effort to empower citizens to reshape the energy economy and be part of the solution to climate change. This year’s theme, “A Sustainable Energy Future; Putting All the Pieces Together”, encourages everyone to see themselves as a piece of the much larger puzzle that includes efforts from the Federal Government, private industry, and the general public.

While scientists and engineers are working to solve many of our energy challenges, there are steps that each of us can take now to lower our emissions while reducing energy and waste disposal costs. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Personal Emissions Calculator can help you measure your own carbon footprint and then take action. The Department of Energy provides an array of low- or no-cost methods specifically geared towards homeowners who want to save energy without compromising their comfort. Google’s Energy Saver Gadget optimizes your computer’s power management settings. The Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Effiency offers a map of utility programs that provide incentives for those who invest in energy efficiency. You can also help by simply spreading the word and making your friends and family aware of their energy consumption.

If protecting the environment, conserving natural resources, saving taxpayer dollars, and creating a better world for our children is not enough incentive, how about a chance to meet The President of the United States? Oh yes!

Last week, President Obama announced the SAVE (Securing Americans Value and Efficiency) Award, which challenges Federal employees to submit practical, environmental-friendly ways of improving government efficiency and savings. Do you have a innovative idea for preserving light bulbs at government facilities? Or how about a brilliant method for reducing the cost of air conditioning?  You have until October 14, 2009, to submit your ideas for consideration in the fiscal year 2011 Budget. In November, the winner will have the opportunity to present his or her idea to President Obama himself. Stay tuned for news on whether you will also be drinking beers with him.

I’ll return with more Energy Awareness Month reports throughout the next few weeks, including some behind-the-scenes video interviews with speakers, sponsors, and others attending the four-part energy event, The Road to the New Energy Economy. I’m energized — are you?

In this report from Dr. John Ohab, we see how public participation in government activity is but a heartbeat away…in the Executive Branch, that is. Congress still lags far behind. In the coming weeks, I will have an update on the status of our efforts to create a participatory mechanism so the public can become informed–and weigh in–on, science and technology policy issues BEFORE Congress drafts legislation. Some exciting things are underway!
Here’s Dr. John with a report on how YOU can now access government data and mash it up ’till you heart’s content….

In 2008, Vivek Kundra, then-Chief Technology Officer for Washington, D.C, was looking for innovative ways to use information technology to improve the city’s government. He looked no further than its citizens.

In 2008, Vivek Kundra, then-Chief Technology Officer for Washington, D.C, was looking for innovative ways to use information technology to improve the city’s government. He looked no further than its citizens.

Kundra created a public contest called Apps for Democracy, which challenged citizens to create their own software applications using DC government data and popular products like iPhones and Google Maps. For years, the DC Data Catalogue had provided public data on crime, construction projects, and government operations. Apps for Democracy rewarded citizens that could think one step further and develop the most cost-effective, accessible ways of re-packaging this data for use by the general public and the government.

The city invested roughly $50,000 in Apps for Democracy, and in just 30 days, produced 47 software applications with an estimated savings of $2,300,000. The effort was so successful it even spawned a follow-up, Apps for Democracy: Community Edition, which asked citizens to develop applications for submitting online requests for city services.

Through Apps for Democracy, Kundra established a new model for cross-sector collaboration by engaging citizens to meet the technology challenges of tomorrow. It was participatory government in its purest form. And, apparently, President Barack Obama was paying attention – in May 2009, he named Kundra the country’s first Federal Chief Information Officer and charged him with “directing the policy and strategic planning of federal information technology investments”.

As a critical player in President Obama’s Open Government Initiative, Kundra has focused his efforts on increasing public participation in government and improving the availability of government information. One of the first initiatives is Data.gov, a website that provides free access to over 100,000 machine-readable datasets, widgets, RSS feeds, and other data tools held by the Federal government. This collection includes valuable data on an array topics that impacts our lives, from financial numbers to transportation statistics to the FBI’s Most Wanted List. And the numbers will only grow as geographical, weather, and other scientific data is opened for public consumption.

The data by itself is not particularly useful. The real value comes when citizens evaluate and repurpose this data into “mashups” — applications that combine different data sources together to create an entirely new product. To unlock some of this potential, Sunlight Labs took a page out of Vivek Kundra’s book and held their own contest, Apps for America: The Data.gov Challenge. On Tuesday, they announced three winners: DataMasher allows users to build mashups of state information and visualize them in different ways; GovPulse allows users to filter and act on information from the Federal Registry, the government’s official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices; and, ThisWeKnow combines nationwide data to provide information about your favorite city or region.

The Data.gov and Apps for Democracy efforts indicate that the government is starting to think differently about how it uses the Internets to share information and provide more opportunities for citizens to participate in their democracy. Take advantage of this new approach. If you’re a software developer with an innovative idea, check out Data.gov and let the ScienceCheerleader team know if you create your own Data.gov mashup. And, if you don’t have the necessary computer programming skills (i.e., me), you can still contribute by suggesting data sets that you would like to see, rating and commenting on existing data, and suggesting improvements to the website.

Here’s one person’s view of what Gov 2.0 means to him:

Project Snapshot:
Topics: computer, web development
Location: anywhere
Duration: anytime
Cost: free or low cost
Gear: computer
Level of Difficulty: moderate-difficult

This just in from Bart. (Love Norman Augustine’s closing point, below. Bam! The door’s open, folks.)

NASA LAUNCHES HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT REVIEW WEB SITE FOR PUBLIC USE

WASHINGTON — NASA is inviting the public to make its voice heard as a
panel of experts undertakes an independent review of planned U.S.
human space flight activities.

NASA has created a Web site for the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight
Plans Committee to facilitate a two-way conversation with the public
about the future direction of the agency’s space flight programs. In
addition to providing documents and information, the site will allow
the public to track committee activities, receive regular updates and
provide input through Web 2.0 tools such as Twitter, Flickr,
user-submitted questions, polls and RSS feeds. Additional features
and content may be added as the committee’s activities continue.

“The human space flight program belongs to everyone,” committee
chairman Norman Augustine said. “Our committee would hope to benefit
from the views of all who would care to contact us.“

Many organizations exist to develop participatory experiences so citizens’ opinions are shared with policy decision makers. The President and his Executive Branch seem pretty tuned into this thinking. Congress/Legislative Branch, however, is about a decade behind   I’m hoping Congress will treat itself to a healthy dose of dedicated sound science policy advice mixed with some public opinion in the form of a Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. We’re not reinventing the wheel. Other nations have Science and Technology Assessment agencies that pull in public participation from time to time. Our Congress doesn’t even have a Tech Assessment Agency let alone a mechanism for public input. They ought to have one. They used to have one. But I digress.
Back to defining a “participatory democracy”.

Here’s one example from AmericaSpeaks. Other organizations neck-deep in this issue can be found on the  National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation website.

Be sure to check out the executive summary (p. 11-14) and introduction (p. 15-16).