Opening up the Yangon Government

Pranesh Prakash

 

Policy Director

Centre for Internet & Society

 

Bengaluru + New Delhi

 

 

CC-BY-SA 4.0 
no proprietary software or standards were used in the making of this slideshow.

Centre for Internet and Society

an independent non-profit research organization

working mostly on policy issues:

• Accessibility for persons with disabilities
• Access to knowledge & copyright/patents
• Internet governance
• Cyber-security
• Freedom of expression
• Privacy
• Open data + open standards +
  free/open source software + open access + OER
• Telecom reforms + Net neutrality

 

and also some academic research on digital humanities

Why?

• Improving government + governance
• Empowering citizens
• Inclusive and equitable society
• Creating opportunities for non-profits and commercial activities
• Solving public problems
• Evidence-based policymaking

How?

• Transparency
• Participatory governance

 

• "Government Enterprise Architecture"
• "Open data"
• "Open standards"
• "Free/open source software"

Open Budgeting + Spending

Brazil

Transparency Portal

 

Impact

Citizen input

Public monitoring of spending

Exposting waste + corruption

 

Challenges

Privacy

Open Contracting & Procurement

Slovakia

 

Impact

More than 2 million contracts published

8% of population uses each year + 90,000 "heavy" users

25% increase in stories on procurement in  media

Multiple 

 

Problem

Transparency ≠ Accountability

Open Education Monitoring

Mexico

Mejora Tu Escuela

 

Impact

Integrated Tracking

Knowing Schools + Comparing + Grading + Improving

Used even by legislators & governors

 

Open Corporate Data

United Kingdom

OpenCorporates

 

Impact

$56.4 billion found in investigations

 85 million companies covered

105 jurisdictions covered

Uncovering "beneficial" ownership

Open Legislative Information

United Kingdom

Online Hansard + Know Your MP

 

Impact

Improving Democracy

Standards

means

causes difficulty, inefficiency.

Open Standards

vs.

causes difficulty, inefficiency.

Open Standards

The Internet is completely based on Open Standards.

Open Standards

Any one can study.

Any one can implement.

Open development.

Can be implemented in free/open source software.

Open Standards

Why should Parliamentarians care?

Vendor-neutrality.

Multiple implementations.

Free/Open Source software can be used.

Flexibility.

Future-proofing.

No forced taxation of citizens.

 

In short: saving costs, long-term benefits

Open Standards

Why should Parliamentarians care?

This can be legislated, mandated.

 

Penalties required.

Free/Open Source Software

Four Freedoms

 

Freedom to use
Freedom to study
Freedom to modify
Freedom to share for a fee or for free

Free/Open Source Software

Why is this Important?

 

Stable, scalable

Vendor independence

Reduced total cost of ownership

No balkanisation of human resource

Security via transparency

Increased innovation

Cultural and linguistic innovation

Free/Open Source Software

 

 

 

Policy to prefer, but not to mandate

Require this as part of the procurement policy

 

Cyber-Security

No simple solution. 

But need careful planning.

 

Security by transparency: FOSS

 

Militaries use FOSS

(e.g., U.S. Dept of Defence)

Cyber-Security

Much of it is not in your hands as individuals, but in hands of computer administrators.

 

Need security experts