Yesterday I had the pleasure to present Amazee and IDHEAP's research on eParticipation and eDemocracy at Switzerland's 3rd eGovernment Symposium in Berne (yes, Amazee has a science arm!). The perfectly organized event featured a wealth of interesting people and eGovernment initiatives. But it also exposed why Switzerland is lagging behind when it comes to the development of a cutting-edge eDemocracy ecosystem: Swiss Federalism ("Kantönligeist"), strong focus on eAdministration and (still) little innovation in the area of eParticipation as well as a very limited integration of Switzerland's Web 2.0 entrepreneurs (I had the strong feeling that Matthias Stürmer from Liip, Ana Maria Moreira and I were the only three participants representing the dynamic social media and open-source world). However, the awareness for most of the shortcomings were there (freely translating Mark Muller, cantonal councilor of Geneva's french statement: "It's time for Switzerland to get the Turbo going". Amazee agrees - and is looking forward to help make Switzerland the number one. One of the cool things to look forward to is definitely the roll out of the SuisseID by May 2010 (allowing for online authentication = verified identity).
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Yesterday I had the pleasure to present Amazee and IDHEAP's research on eParticipation and eDemocracy at Switzerland's 3rd eGovernment Symposium in Berne (yes, Amazee has a science arm!). The perfectly organized event featured a wealth of interesting people and eGovernment initiatives. But it also exposed why Switzerland is lagging behind when it comes to the development of a cutting-edge eDemocracy ecosystem: Swiss Federalism ("Kantönligeist"), strong focus on eAdministration and (still) little innovation in the area of eParticipation as well as a very limited integration of Switzerland's Web 2.0 entrepreneurs (I had the strong feeling that Matthias Stürmer from Liip, Ana Maria Moreira and I were the only three participants representing the dynamic social media and open-source world). However, the awareness for most of the shortcomings were there (freely translating Mark Muller, cantonal councilor of Geneva's french statement: "It's time for Switzerland to get the Turbo going". Amazee agrees - and is looking forward to help make Switzerland the number one. One of the cool things to look forward to is definitely the roll out of the SuisseID by May 2010 (allowing for online authentication = verified identity).