Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2011 > January > 27 > Entry
Government 2.0 Camp tackles tech and democracy in Texas government
On Friday and Saturday, community leaders in technology, media, education, government and public policy will gather on the ACC Eastview campus to talk about how tech can make government more accessible and transparent.
The Texas Government 2.0 Camp is an offshoot of sorts to a 2009 government camp event that took place in Washington, D.C..
This weekend’s event is more focused on state and local government in Texas and will be broken up into two days of events — a more traditional schedule of panels on Friday and an “Unconference” day on Saturday with more spontaneous programming put on by attendees.
Julia Gregory, one of the event organizers who also works for the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, said she expects many attendees to be state and local government workers who are exploring social media and other technology to help their agencies.
“Some of them are calling (TPWD) and asking, ‘How do we do this, how do you overcome this obstacle? There are some obstacles when it comes to getting clearance from the top. If managers are not aware of (the tools of social media), there’s a sense of fear and sense of loss of control of the message.”
A Friday panel featuring Gregory, Austin tech expert and blogger Jon Lebkowsky, the City of Austin’s Eve Richter, Loulia Miller of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles and Lydia Saldana, also of TPWD, will address government and social media.
Evan Smith, CEO and editor of the Texas Tribune, will be the keynote speaker. There’s also a tribute to Gary Chapman planned for Friday morning.
Tickets are $10 for the even (plus a small service charge) for the conference. About 100 tickets have been sold so far; Gregory said that plenty of seats are still availlable and that there are also plans to stream the event on the txgov20.org website. It takes place 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Building 8000, Room 8500 at the ACC Eastview Campus (map).
Edited, 1:10 p.m. 1/28 to add: Live streaming video link on the website.
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