First Open Government Summit to debate Open Source in the Public Sector
London – 22 May 2012 – The first Open Government Summit will take place on May 30th in Central Hall Westminster, London and will examine how the open source model allows public sector organisations to be more efficient, save money, meet mission-critical IT demands and improve their services.
Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, said: “The advantages of open source for government IT are well documented and will lead to efficiencies and savings in the delivery of public services. How to implement open source solutions most effectively is an important matter, and I am pleased that the summit is devoting time to discussing it.”
Government and institutional speakers include among others: Mark O’Neill, Proposition Director for Innovation and Delivery at theGovernment Digital Service, Tariq Rashid, Lead Architect at the UK Home Office, Graham Mallin, Head of Enterprise Architecture at the Met Office, Graham Taylor CEO and Co-Founder of OpenForum Europe and Gerry Gavigan, Chair of the Open Source Consortium.
Open Source vendors such as John Powell, CEO of Alfresco and Tugdual Grall, CTO of eXo Platform will share insights from public sector projects they have been involved with. The summit will further host a Q&A session with Glyn Moody, author of “Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution” (2001) plus panel discussions and ‘Open Mic’ sessions about the opportunities, challenges and myths surrounding the use of open source in the public sector by Dr. Andy Williamson, Alex Butler, James Governer and Richard Harvey.
Aingaran Pillai, CEO of Zaizi and organizer of the summit explains: “With this first event we want to bring together government, industry and development communities to start a dialogue about how to practically apply open source in the UK’s public sector. We have seen how other countries’ governments have been able to lower their costs while improving security, transparency and public participation and believe that open source is the answer to many challenges the UK public sector is currently facing.”
Further information about programme and speakers can be found at: http://opengov.zaizi.com/
Admission to the event is free but seats are limited. Interested parties can register at: http://opengov.zaizi.com/registration/
About Zaizi
Zaizi is an experienced information and technology consulting firm specialising in enterprise content management (ECM) and document capture solutions. Through strategic partnerships with eXo, Alfresco and Ephesoft, Zaizi delivers a complete range of enterprise content solutions, including document and web content management systems, scanning solutions, portals, and corporate intranets and extranets. Our technical expertise and innovative approach leverages rich internet applications, social networking platforms and cloud infrastructure to deliver scalable, on-demand solutions.
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About this event
Although open source is finally gaining ground, the UK’s public sector is leading from behind when compared to the US and many parts of Europe. UK public sector accountability is high and IT leaders must be confident that projects will adhere to security, accessibility and flexibility requirements.
The good news is that there are now many inspiring and proven open source success stories in some of the UK’s highest profile organisations. At the Open Gov Summit, you learn how the Government Digital Service, The Home Office and the Met Office have improved operations and saved money with open source technology.
We’ll also be sharing anecdotes from farther afield. In 2009, the White House chose open source platform Drupal to build a collaborative website with the ability to elicit and manage feedback from citizens. If the most powerful voice on the international stage is prepared to trust an open source platform, surely it’s worth a look-in?
Open Gov Summit is founded on the open source principle that good ideas come from everywhere. In order to make IT sustainable in the public sector, we must fundamentally rethink how we orchestrate and create value. I hope you will join us to add your good ideas to the conversation and take part in what promises to be a stimulating and educational day!