Open Government Initiative Blog

Citizen cartographers join the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Office of Digital Strategy for the first-ever White House Mapathon.

Two years ago, President Obama signed an Executive Order (E.O.) to improve how our government shares information for the benefit of the American people. Today, we're excited by how far open data has come in the U.S. and around the world.

The Obama Administration has take important steps to make modern approaches, such as prizes and challenges, standard tools in every Federal agency's toolbox. Nearly 400 prizes and challenges have been posted on challenge.gov since September 2010, and thousands of Federal employees across the government are using these approaches to deliver services more effectively and efficiently, and to solve problems that relate to the missions of their Agencies.

Clean water is a precious resource. Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the Safe Drinking Water Act dashboard, a website that tracks whether public water systems are complying with the laws that keep our water safe and clean.

Today, the Administration is proud to launch the first U.S. Public Participation Playbook. The playbook is meant to help government better build more responsive and efficient public participation programs and measure their effectiveness.

On November 21, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, in partnership with the Office of Personnel Management and the Federal Community of Practice on Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science, convened a workshop to kick off development of the Open Innovation Toolkit. The Toolkit, part of the Obama Administration's Second Open Government National Action Plan, will harness public ingenuity to help address scientific and societal challenges.

The government is working together with the public to solve national problems, and achieving amazing things across the country. This year, the Open Government Partnership (OGP) is introducing the first Open Government Awards to recognize efforts by 64 member-nations, including the United States, utilizing citizen participation to improve government policies and to better serve their nations.

If you’ve ever checked the weather forecast or used a digital map, you’re likely among the millions of people who have benefited from U.S. Open Government data.

Public participation in government isn’t just a cornerstone of democracy, it’s how the United States government ensures that policies and practices reflect the ideas and expertise of the American people.

It’s Sunshine Week again—a chance to celebrate transparency and participation in government and freedom of information. Every year in mid-March, we take stock of our progress and where we are headed to make our government more open for the benefit of citizens.

The Obama Administration released the second U.S. Open Government National Action Plan, announcing 23 new or expanded open-government commitments that will advance these efforts even further. Highlights of the second National Action Plan included 'We the People," Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Modernization, The Global Initiative on Fiscal Transparency (GIFT), Open Data to the Public and Participatory Budgeting.

President Obama launched the first U.S. Open Government National Action Plan in September 2011, as part of the Nation’s commitment to the global Open Government Partnership, a multilateral initiative to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. The first Plan laid out 26 concrete steps the United States would take to promote public participation in government, increase transparency, and manage public resources more effectively. We are proud of this progress, but recognize that there is always more we can do to build a more efficient, effective, and accountable government. In that spirit, the Obama Administration has committed to develop a second National Action Plan on Open Government: “NAP 2.0.”

As part of our ongoing commitment to the international Open Government Partnership, the Obama Administration has committed to develop a second National Action Plan on Open Government. To accomplish this task effectively, we’ll need all-hands-on-deck. That’s why we plan to solicit and incorporate your input as we develop the National Action Plan “2.0.”

Yesterday, President Obama visited Austin, Texas, to kick off his Middle Class Jobs and Opportunity Tour. At Capital Factory, a local start-up incubator, he met with technology entrepreneurs and innovative companies that are helping grow our economy and create jobs by building new products and services. One of those companies, Stormpulse, uses freely available government weather data to help businesses protect themselves.