MixedInk is proud to serve, once again, as a One Web Day ambassador. Inspired by Earth Day, the goal is to raise awareness of, and advocate for, an open, interconnected, accessible internet – with a belief that it will play a vital role in how regular citizens will solve global problems.

One Web Day was founded in 2006 by Susan Crawford, who now advises President Obama on science, technology, and innovation policy, and has grown into a global event, with activities taking place in cities around the world on September 22nd. You can get involved by organizing or attending an event on One Web Day, editing a Wikipedia article, donating a computer, or joining the Electronic Frontier Foundation, just to name a few options.

This year, the focus is on a key internet value: online participation in democracy. This is something that really inspires our work, here at MixedInk. Looking back, here have been some highlights in public participation and engagement:

• The Netroots Platform: Even before our public launch, a group of online activists used MixedInk to write a progressive political platform – a piece of which was included in the actual Democratic platform. See the ABCNews and Wired articles covering the project.
• GovTrack, a non-partisan group that tracks legislation, invited its community to write a collective letter to Congress opposing a gun control bill. This letter was converted into a petition, signed by over 3,000 people, and delivered to several members of the House.
• Congressman Anthony Weiner invited citizens to help generate a set of health care principles to help inform his work on the subcommittee on health.
• The White House invited the public to help craft open government policy, including how to make the federal government more transparent, collaborative, and participatory as part of its groundbreaking Open Government Initiative. You can hear me talking about the project on Federal News Radio.

In each of these cases, we’ve been so inspired by the ordinary people who have taken time out of their busy schedules – who have spent their precious nights and weekends – to do the hard work of writing policy, expressing their priorities, and participating in democracy. It has been a lesson in true citizenship.

Carlos Campuzano, a member of the Spanish Parliament, just invited constituents to weigh in on immigration law. In the next few weeks, the City of San Francisco will invite residents to weigh in on local policy issues. At MixedInk, we look forward to watching these projects unfold and are thankful for the opportunity to play a small role in this movement.

Check out this video about One Web Day and then get involved!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 at 6:40 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.