Millennium Scholarship Foundation: A Case Study in Sustaining a Network
on Aug 6, 2009 in random action-canada canada25 education Millennium-Scholarship-Foundation networks sauve-scholars social media For those who haven't heard, one of the worst decisions of the current government has been to not renew the Millennium Scholarship Foundation. The foundation, created by Chretien in 2000 had a 10 years of funding to pursue three goals: 1) improve acc...

5 Ways to get to the Next Million Mozillians
on Aug 5, 2009 in free culture open source technology firefox mozilla open web social movements Mark Surman, Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation has been ruminating on: "how Mozilla can actively encourage large numbers of people to participate on making the web more open and awesome." For a long time I've been a supporter of the idea t...

A Case Study in Open Government: The Burrard Bridge Trial
on Aug 4, 2009 in public policy vancouver cycling open open government public transport urban planning urban public transit Background On Monday, July 13th the City of Vancouver began the Burrard Bridge lane trial. For those unfamiliar with the trial, the Burrard Bridge is a 6 lane bridge that connects the downtown core of Vancouver with one of the cities major suburban...

Crowdsourcing Application to Stay Cool in Vancouver
on Jul 31, 2009 in vancouver My friend and open city collaborator Tim Wilson has come up with a genius idea for citizens of Vancouver to beat the heat. He's asking everyone to help map all the free water fountains in the city as well as public air conditioned spaces. To do this...

If you are 25 and under Edmonton is the place to be this weekend
on Jul 31, 2009 in canadian foreign policy Edmonton global citizenship youth As a kid (and my whole life really), I've been blessed with the opportunity to travel. Initially, my parents work took them, and thus me, abroad so that, at a young age, I spent time in Europe (including a week behind the Iron Curtain before it fell)...

Your Canadian citizenship means nothing
on Jul 30, 2009 in canadian foreign policy canadian politics Abdelrazi due process foreign policy human-rights travel There have, in the past few years, been some very disturbing trends around the state of Canadians rights. The first assault was very direct. The current conservative government has made it law that children to Canadians who were themselves were born...

Plastic bag fees, inflation and lessons for bottled water
on Jul 29, 2009 in public policy bottled water health recycling Just over a month ago the grocery store Metro introduced a five-cent fee for single-use bags in Ontario and Quebec. According to a recent press release Metro grocery stores distributed 70 per cent fewer bags compared to the monthly average and demand...

Remixing Angie Byron to create the next Million Mozillians
on Jul 28, 2009 in open source community management mozilla As I've noted in some previous posts, Angie Byron gave a presentation on getting more women in open source. My feeling is that the systems, culture and tools we put in place to attract more women into open source are the same systems we need to attra...

Creating the Open Data Bargain in Cities
on Jul 27, 2009 in free culture negotiation open source public policy public service sector renewal technology vancouver open data OpenCities Embedded below is the talk I've given to both community hackers (at Open Web Vancouver) as well as City of Vancouver Staff regarding the opportunities and challenges around open data and the open motion. (Here's an update on where Vancouver is at cou...

Articles I’m digesting 24/7/2009
on Jul 24, 2009 in commentary cool links open source public policy public service sector renewal technology design foreign policy social media Been a while since I've done one of these and I've got a lot of great pieces I've been reading. So let's get to it. Designs on Policy by Allison Arieff (via David B.) and TED Talk: Are we in Control of our own Decisions? by Dan Ariely I keep hearing...