Much focus has been on Web 2.0 technology as an enabler for wider dissemination, awareness raising and not least participation and transparency. It is therefore interesting to see that Web 2.0 technologies are being used in various ways for a range of purposes in this year’s 5th Ministerial eGovernment Conference, 18-20 November, in Malmö (Sweden) and 4th European eGovernment Awards.

RSS AND TWITTER FEEDS

In addition to RSS feed, twitter feed is available onthe Ministerial eGovernment Conference website www.egov2009.se. Participants are actively encourage to twitter about the Informal Ministerial Meeting on eGovernment and the 5th Ministerial eGovernment Conference to use the hashtag #egov2009.

EUROPEAN eGOVERNMENT AWARDS PUBLIC PRIZE DECIDED BY ONLINE VOTE

Following success of the first online vote in relation to the 3rd European eGovernment Awards 2007 in Lisbon (Portugal) the European Commission and the European eGovernment Awards Consortium decided early on to continue practicing what they preach. In addition to selecting a winner, the objective of the online vote for the Public Prize to: increase the visibility and status of public sector ICT projects in Europe; encourage good practice exchange, and; to encourage active involvement and participating in the European eGovernment Awards by the epractice.eu and wider stakeholder communities. The online vote is an additional ICT initiatives by the Awards Consortium and the European Commission including a fully electronic submission process (via www.epractice.eu) and the remote evaluation of the received submissions by the jury in the first phase of the evaluation. The online voting for the European eGovernment Awards Public Prize was launched late this summer and closed on 11 November at 18:00 CET.

For over a month, the members of the ePractice.eu community have been able to vote for their favorite cases from among the 52 European eGovernment Awards 2009 finalists. The voting is now closed but the 52 finalist cases remain published at ePractice.eu and are open to receive members’ comments. The winner of the Public Prize will be announced at the awards ceremony on 19 November at 18:30 – and likely to the subject of a webcast.

WEBCAST OF CONFERENCE SESSIONS

The plenary sessions and three of the parallel sessions at the Ministerial eGovernment Conference will be webcast live and on demand this year from the conference website www.egov2009.se. In addition the ceremony for the 4th European eGovernment Awards will most likely also be the subject of a webcast. The programme is available on www.egov2009.se/programme

VIRTUAL EXHIBITION

 For the first time the European eGovernment Awards finalist are accessible online through a virtual exhibition. The virtual exhibition can be visited on www.expopolis.com (NB: for practical reasons you have to register). Naturally an electronic version of the conference exhibition catalogue will be available on www.epractice.eu/awardsmediakit as of 19 November when the Ministerial eGovernment Conference and Exhibition opens.

OTHER NEWS

 Ministerial tour of European eGovernment Awards Finalist stands: A ministerial tour of the European eGovernment Awards Finalists stands will take place on 18 November 2009 at the Ministerial eGovernment Conference and Exhibition. Finalist country fact sheets published to enhance the promotion of the European eGovernment Awards Finalists 2009 17 country factsheets from those European countries from which finalists have been selected for the European eGovernment Awards 2009. The factsheets are published in English but will be made available in the relevant national languages in the beginning of November. The fact sheets are available with other dissemination material on www.epractice.eu/en/awardsmediakit

 NEWS AND BACKGROUND

 www.epractice.eu/awards  www.egov2009.se