Quito, looking down.
Quito, looking up.
After more than 1/2 day spent in the air, I arrived to Quito to attend the ICEDEG 2017 chaired by Andreas Meier (University of Fribourg, CH) and Luis Terán (University of Fribourg, CH & Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas (ESPE), EC).
Rain, forecast for the whole week.
Programme and details available here:
We are currently opening three PhD student scholarships to join our dynamic interdisciplinary research team at the Faculty of Business and Globalization at Danube University Krems. These positions provide young researchers with the unique opportunity to develop state-of-the art methodological competences.
An important goal of this PhD program is assisting in evidence-informed policy design with a holistic understanding of migration policy as a pillar of social peace and the stability of states. Europe is at the center of continuous migrant and refugee movements of unprecedented scale, requiring policy makers to gain an in-depth understanding of the factors driving migration (security, income inequality, demography), facilitating migration (information and communication technology, social media) and the related impact in various fields (labor market, society, security, economy etc.). The program aims to pursue new ways of evidence-based policy making by understanding migration from a variety of methodological backgrounds, such as social or natural sciences and may focus on areas such as demography, economics, anthropology, psychology, political science, history etc. and applying diverse research methods [experimental research (e. g. game theory, behavioral economics), semantic research, data analytics (e. g. big data analysis, multivariate modeling), systems analysis (e.g. system dynamics, agent-based modeling, network analysis) and others].
The PhD student will work with senior researchers in an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary environment, including various aspects of migration studies, informatics, economics and business studies, sustainability science, and public health. These are 3-year, 30h/week positions.
The program is funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior and the European Union’s Asylum-, Migration- and Integrationfund (AMIF).
During this year`s CeDEM Asia 2016 International Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government, a meeting between the Daegu Metropolitan City (Information Management Division), National Information Society Agency (Department of Government 3.0) and the Danube University Krems (Department for E-Governance) has taken place to exchange the knowledge and strategies in the field of E-Government and Open Government Data.
Participants of the workshop: Daegu Metropolitan City: Mi Young Park, Yong Won Kim, Jae Yeoul Jeong; National Information Society Agency: Shin-Ae Shin; Danube University Krems: Peter Parycek, Michael Sachs, Malgorzata Goraczek.
The goal of the meeting was to get a better understanding about the objectives and current status of Daegu Metropolitan City, which can be summarized as following:
The national Department for Government 3.0 wants to improve the services for citizens and reduce the costs for businesses through open data. New business opportunities shall be established through the use of open data by private companies. The core of the project is a further transition from information to data in a cloud solution. There shall be a transition from digital government to data driven government. Korea has its own data centres and a government owned cloud system for security reasons. The city of Daegu is the first local government that has the cloud based information system. Cloud solutions for government are all domestic. Now, private companies shall be certified by the government to be able to host such clouds. The information that is handled on national level are in national data centers, and data exchange between the levels of government is possible.
The government has its own verification system. National government agencies have their own certification. Having an integrated system is a target.
Most important service for citizens is the public government website that contains all information. Each local government has its own government services.
Since the enactment in 2013 all government agencies have to open their data. Personal information and information related to national safety issues are protected, but all other data is made publicly available. There have been developed popular open data applications:
The meeting allowed a bright inside into the work of Daegu, national strategies and plans according to E-Governance and Open Governement Data.
We are now entering the second phase of social media, with a general phobia in many governments in Asia towards counter-revolutions. F.i. in the Hong Kong Umbrella revolution case, many protesteres used now Firechat as police switched off the mobile networks. In the West there was the worry that the liberal are dominating the social media. However, with view to dominating views, social media rather promotes echo chambers and oxygen might be provided to political movements that thrive on anger etc. These network effects are only going to be a better problem in the future. There is the fake news phenomenon plus people taking on extreme or simplified views: the information that gets the most views is not necessarily the most truthful. However, social media literacy is also changing, and people might do more fact-checking.
The discussion also revolved around the rise of Facebook and its power regarding the definition of truth and manipulation. Trust filters are now established within our friends (reputation networks). Also it was discusses how much censorship was done in social media by the government. India, for instance, has one of the highest rates of requesting Facebook for user data. Regarding the prediction of elections via social media data, so far many cases might have been luck, also due to problems of representativeness.
The 3rd CeDEM Asia started on the 7th of December in Daegu (South Korea). CeDEM brings together researchers, practitioneers and activists from many contexts in the region. President Faulhammer welcomed the participants and mentioned Korea as one of the leading industries in information technologies as well as the dedicated open access policy of CeDEM. Since the beginning of the conference series, emphasis was on the paradigm shifts due to ICTs and the development of civic involvement in society, and the creation of a network of tolerance, innovative spirit and innovation. The Centre for E-Governance has come to stand to a leading research group with many international cooperations and projects, and CeDEM Asia is an important part for the engagement of Danube University in the Asien region. Prof. Parycek emphasised that CeDEM Asia has a focus on communication and networks. Prof. Skoric mentioned the national context of the conference series and invited people to suggest cities for the next one. So if you are in Asia and want to host CeDEM 2018, do get in touch!
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