Slate of Candidates

Hans Jochen Scholl

Bio: H. Jochen Scholl is an assistant professor in the University of Washington's Information School. He teaches and conducts research on information management, process change, and organizational transformation in government and other organizations. He employs both quantitative computer simulation techniques and qualitative research designs. Jochen has studied the strategies, motives, and focal areas of business and process change in digital government projects as well as the current practices employed in such projects. His special interests include integration, interoperability, organizational transformation, and the strategic choices in mobile technology diffusion in digital government. He is the PI of the NSF-funded research project on field force automation in local government (2005 to 2008). For many years, Jochen has been involved in organizing major conferences on electronic or digital government. He has been engaged in the formation of the Digital Government Society of North America and has served on board of elected officers. Jochen facilitated the worldwide discussion and voting processes on both the Society's Mission Statement and its constitutions. He has also been an active member of the Society's journal committee.

Statement:In my vision of the digital government community, I see practice and research closely working together. Both have the great advantage to draw from a number of diverse disciplines when tackling the complex phenomena. Our fairly distinct disciplinary, cultural, and geographical backgrounds provide us with different views of the world, and consequently, with different sets of accepted standards and basic assumptions. When working together, we have found this to be both a challenge and an opportunity. In government practice, we pursue what practically helps transform the business of government with information and technology towards improved service, effectiveness/efficiency, and a citizen-centric orientation. We uphold the principles of democratic governance and understand that we sometimes might face challenges in the uses of technology and information. We value our fairly different perspectives and traditions, which we all bring to the table. The Digital Government Society plays an important role in advancing an inclusive, multi-disciplinary, and democratically governed community of practitioners and scholars in Digital Government. The society’s leadership plays a key role in advancing this vision. This has been and continues to be the basis of my understanding of our community, society, leadership, and my personal contribution to it.

Website: http://www.faculty.washington.edu/jscholl

Yigal Arens

Bio: Dr. Yigal Arens is Director of the Intelligent Systems Division of the University of Southern California's Information Science Institute, located in Marina del Rey, California, USA; Director of DGRC, the USC/Columbia University Digital Government Research Center; and Research Professor at USC’s Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering. Dr. Arens helped found the Digital Government Society of North America and currently serves as its treasurer. He has been active in the digital government research community pretty much since its inception. Dr. Arens received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. His primary research interests have been digital government, information integration, planning in the domain of information servers, knowledge representation, and human-machine communication. In 1983, he joined the faculty of the Computer Science Department at the University of Southern California. He joined USC's Information Sciences Institute (USC/ISI) in 1987, where he first worked on the Integrated Interfaces project, a multimedia presentation design system combining text, tables, maps, and other graphics. For almost ten years he headed the SIMS (Single Interface to Multiple Sources) research group specializing in integration of heterogeneous databases and other information sources. Dr. Arens has been Director of the Intelligent Systems Division, one of the largest Artificial Intelligence research labs in the US, since 1999. Since 2005 he has been Director of DGRC, which he was Co-Director of since its creation in 1999. In 2002, Dr. Arens joined the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering as Research Professor. In 2003, Dr. Arens founded USC’s Center for Research on Unexpected Events (CRUE), which he headed for its first year. In 1999, together with two colleagues from ISI, Dr. Arens founded Fetch Technologies, a company that specializes in extracting data from Web sites.

Statement:I have been helping to organize the Digital Government community in the US since the NSF began funding research in this area in 1999. In fact, I was involved in working with the NSF to help found the DG research program even before its inception. In addition, I have been the treasurer of every dg.o conference since the first one in 2000. In our first DGSNA vote I was elected Treasurer. Among other things, holding this position has required me to plan the conversion of the conference from its past dependence on NSF grants to a future of financial self-sufficiency, and possibly even one of being a revenue generator for the society. I hope those of you who know me or have merely attended the conferences consider my contributions so far as treasurer, and my contributions to the DG community in general, to be valuable. I ask that you let me continue to be part of the process of building our community and increasing appreciation for the potential of digital government by reelecting me as treasurer of the DGSNA.

Website: http://www.isi.edu/arens/

Andrea Kavanaugh

Bio: Andrea Kavanaugh currently serves as the Chair of the DG Society Communication Committee which assists the Board and the membership with the design and development of the DG website. A Fulbright scholar and Cunningham Fellow, Dr. Kavanaugh is Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. She is also the Associate Director of the university-wide interdisciplinary research Center for Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Her research lies in the areas of social computing, communication behavior and effects, and development communication. Prior to joining the HCI Center in 2002, she served as Director of Research for the community computer network known as the Blacksburg Electronic Village (BEV) from its inception in 1993. She holds an MA in Communication from the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD in Planning (with a focus on telecommunications) from Virginia Tech. She currently serves on the board of the International Telecommunications Society (ITS), an interdisciplinary association of professionals in academia, the telecommunications industry and government. She is the author, co-author or editor of three books, 15 refereed journal articles, 14 refereed or invited book chapters; 18 other articles, reviews or technical reports, 18 refereed presentations at professional meetings; and over 40 invited professional presentations or talks. Her research is published by MIT Press, Springer, Greenwood, Kluwer, and Artech House and in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Interacting with Computers, American Behavioral Scientist, and The Information Society. Her work has also appeared in Proceedings of the Digital Government Conferences (2005, 2006) and of the Proceedings of the Communities and Technologies Conferences (2003, 2005, 2007).

Statement:I will serve to promote a vibrant and growing society with diverse membership in academia, industry and government. My main contribution to recruitment would be in the domains of academia and local government, as these are where my strongest affiliations are based. As a Board member, I will pursue synergies of affiliation for the DG Society with other professional agencies and associations and with appropriate publication channels for our membership. I will continue to promote interaction and communication with members through the DG Society website, and to explore myriad ways to enhance interactivity among members through appropriate online resources, in order to support and cultivate ongoing exchange between face-to-face encounters at annual conferences.

Website: http://java.cs.vt.edu/users/kavan

George Beard

Bio: George Beard is a senior instructor and consulting principal with the Executive Leadership Institute at Portland State University’s Hatfield School of Government. His professional interests focus on technology-based innovation, performance improvement, and development of next-generation leaders. He is founder of the School’s electronic government program and currently manages five national intern programs (www.summerinternships.us). He is also responsible for business development for the School’s new E-MPA program. During his 30-year career, he has split his time between the public and private sectors, much of it involving the deployment of technology and pursuit of innovation. Mr. Beard's federal, state, and local government experience includes stints with the U.S. Department of Justice, Bonneville Power Administration, State of Oregon, Multnomah County, and Santa Barbara County. During the last 10 years, George has worked for several technology and software firms in sales, consulting, alliance management, and corporate communications. Mr. Beard serves as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Digital Government and as a board member of the La Salle Foundation. An occasional contributor to Public CIO Magazine, his latest article, “What's Your IQ (Innovation Quotient)?” is slated for publication in November 2007. He is also president and founder of GovernmentWise Inc., a consultancy focusing on promoting the promise of electronic government. George holds degrees from Michigan State University, the State University of New York at Albany, and Portland State University.

Statement:My practice focuses on public sector innovation, performance improvement, and development of next-generation leaders. My interest in these pursuits flows from two factors. One is the worsening fiscal condition of the country and how it will exacerbate our ability in the future to fuel the important work of government. (We need to develop lean delivery platforms for public service ... especially those routine activities that are informational, transactional, and regulatory in nature. The second problem I see is structural: Our service model for government was spawned in the 19th century and perfected in the 1950s. It is too sluggish and too costly for a 21st century world and for a new cadre of citizens that I like to call, “The New Wired Majority.”

Website: http://www.eli.pdx.edu/

John Bertot

Bio: John Carlo Bertot is Professor in the College of Information at Florida State University. He also serves as associate director of the Information Use Management and Policy Institute in the School. Bertot teaches and conducts research in the areas of information and telecommunications policy, with an emphasis on the planning, development, and evaluation of e-government services. Bertot’s interests include the nexus of government technologies and policy issues such as access to and dissemination of government information, privacy, security, and participatory democracy. Bertot serves as editor of Government Information Quarterly, an international journal of policy, practice, and management, and co-editor of Library Quarterly, the longest running information science journal in the United States.

Statement:These are exciting times for the Digital Government Society. As editor of Government Information Quarterly, I have witnessed the Digital Government Community develop over these last several years. The digital government community is maturing as both a field of research and professional society. The opportunities to engage in collaborative research and professional practice are substantial and heretofore unprecedented. The vision I have for the Society is one in which practitioners and researchers work together to understand the digital government arena from multiple perspectives – policy, technology innovation, technology development and implementation, integration, and benchmarking (to include impact measures), to name selected areas. The challenges for practice and research in these areas are substantial, but worthy of pursuit. Working with the Society, it is my hope to further bridge research and practice and facilitate the development of a long-term research agenda to continue the progress of the field.

Website: http://www.ii.fsu.edu/~jbertot

Judy Cushing

Bio: Judy Cushing has been a Member of the Computer Science Faculty at The Evergreen State College, a public four-year interdisciplinary liberal arts college, since 1983. She served as dg.o program co-chair with Theresa Pardo for 2005 and 2006, and dg.o 2007 Conference Co-Chair. Prior to entering academia, Judy worked as a software developer and technology project manager in both the public sector and government, including IBM, Texas Instruments, two small startups (one in France and one in Seattle), Universities (Bordeaux, Cornell), and the U.S. Public Health Service. She completed her Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering at Oregon Graduate Institute in 1993, and holds a M.A. in philosophy from Brown University and a B.A. in philosophy and mathematics from The College of William and Mary. Judy’s research involves information technology to support scientific research, most recently ecologists (but in the past medicine, computational chemistry, molecular biology, and oceanography). One current project aims to make recent ecology research results more readily available to state agencies, as they make, justify, and document decisions involving resource management.

Statement:As a dg.o board member, Judy will work to perpetuate the dg.o annual conference as the major venue for presenting and publishing digital government research, to promote excellence in interdisciplinary research across the social sciences and computer science, and to involve government agencies in that research and subsequent development of innovative IT. In terms of new initiatives, she would like to investigate how the DG Society can reach rank and file federal, state, and local IT professionals – people who could benefit from research results and methods, but who are unlikely to attend a research conference or be partners in an academic research project.

Website: canopy.evergreen.edu

J. Ramon Gil-Garcia

Bio: J. Ramon Gil-Garcia is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Administration at Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas (Center for Research and Teaching in Economics) in Mexico City and a Research Fellow at the Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY). Currently, he is also a Faculty Affiliate at the National Center for Digital Government, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Ramon is the author or co-author of articles published in The International Public Management Journal, Government Information Quarterly, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, European Journal of Information Systems, Reforma y Democracia, Gestion y Politica Publica, Espiral: Estudios sobre Estado y Sociedad, Convergencia, and Ciencias de Gobierno, among others. His research interests include collaborative electronic government, inter-organizational information integration, adoption and implementation of emergent technologies, information technologies in the budgeting process, digital divide policies, and multi-method research approaches.

Statement:I have been an active member of the digital government community for several years and have participated in the organization of our annual conference since 2003, playing different roles such as Student Chair, Program Committee member, Posters and System Demonstrations Co-Chair, and, currently, Program Co-Chair for dg.o 2008. I was also a member of the Membership Committee of our Society this year, and we started discussing ways to consolidate our membership. I would like to continue working for the Society in the capacity of a Board Member. The Digital Government Society of North America is becoming the natural space for researchers and practitioners of Canada, Mexico, and the United States to explore issues and questions about information, technology, management, and policy in government settings. I will work in this direction, promoting our Society in Mexico and Canada, and encouraging more government actors and young scholars from the three countries to become involved.

Website: http://www.cide.edu/investigador/profile.php?IdInvestigador=1167, http://www.ctg.albany.edu/about/about?sub=people§ion=ramon

Valerie Gregg

Bio: Valerie Gregg is Assistant Director for Development at the University of Southern California/Information Sciences Institute's Digital Government Research Center. She also serves as an independent digital government advisor and consultant. She is Secretary of the Digital Government Society of North America. Recently, Valerie served on a Computer Science and Telecommunications Board study panel assessing the Social Security Administration’s E-Government Strategy. She is Co-PI on a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded award entitled "Building and Sustaining an International Digital Government Research Community of Practice". Valerie is also Co-PI on several US NSF-China Digital Government Research Workshops. Prior to working in academia, she had a 30-year career in public service at the Federal level. For eight years, she was Program Manager for the Digital Government Research in the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems at NSF. She has been on the conference committee for the annual International Conference for Digital Government Research (dgo) since its inception in 2000. Valerie also served for two years on the Program Committee for the annual European Union e-Challenges conference. She currently is chair of the E-Government Symposium held in conjunction with the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Prior to her time at the NSF, Valerie worked for twenty-two years at the United States Census Bureau as a program manager in various aspects of the decennial census. She managed an intra-agency team charged with designing and building the Census Bureau’s first Internet site. Valerie also served as Chair for the Interagency Task Force responsible for design, development and management of the award winning “one-stop” shopping for Federal statistics Internet site (http://www.fedstats.gov). Valerie lives in Alexandria, Virginia. She is President of her community association. Her hobbies include hiking, biking, kayaking, travel, photography, and golf.

Statement:The Digital Government Society of North America has evolved over the past eighteen months from a fledging vision to a small, but stable organization. I have been privileged to play a part in this while serving as Secretary. I’ve seen the board, our committees, and a growing community of digital government researchers, students, and practitioners come together to start building the society--which is still a “start-up”. In the next term, we must start implementing a strategic plan for growth and sustainability. Collectively we need to be very innovative to ensure its future. We must beyond our traditional and supportive relationship with the US National Science Foundation and a core group of dedicated researchers and government program managers. My vision for the coming two years involves enhancing the organization’s infrastructure that enables increased stability, sustainability and growth. This vision can only be realized if we develop and clearly communicate new benefits and services for members and sponsors alike. The DGSNA board will be making strategic choices in the coming years that will necessarily be predicated on increasing outreach to a broader DG community that encompasses all of North America. The Society needs to develop new relationships with organizations and institutions. These new relationships can be established with a broader set of government agencies at all levels of government, with industry, and with non-governmental organizations in the US, Canada, and Mexico. As our infrastructure becomes more stable and provides the solid foundation for us to realize the DGSNA mission, the DGSNA can also serve as a resource and model to fledging e-government and digital government societies around the globe. In conclusion, I believe I am uniquely qualified to make substantive, imaginative and strategic contributions towards building a sustainable and infrastructure that will be valued by our members and sponsors.

Robert Maslyn

Bio: Bob Maslyn was elected to the Digital Government Society’s first Board of Directors in 2006, serving as liaison to the Research and Government Management Committee. He initiated the DGS partnership with the Transitions in Governance 2008 project, focusing on e-government, which seeks to shape the government reform agenda for the next President. He serves as a Member, Program Committee, ICEGOV 2007, International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance. He has anchored his federal career in two major agencies: (1) He is currently in the Office of the Chief Acquisition Officer of the U.S. General Services Administration (Washington, D.C.), where he has made numerous contributions to creating the Electronic Government of the 21st Century, focused on government-wide solutions. He developed the FirstGov.gov search engine (since re-named USA.gov) and pioneered government multi-application smart cards. He is now developing digital government integrated acquisition solutions and enterprise architecture. (2) Earlier in his career he was based in the Office of the Secretary of the huge Cabinet-level Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where he was Director of Special Grants Initiatives to transform how HHS (and eventually the Government itself) makes and manages billions of dollars in grants, advancing e-grants projects. He entered the U.S. Government as a Presidential Management Intern (PMI) as part of the first class of PMIs in 1978, and have been committed to change management in government over the past 29 years.

Statement:As smart as the digital government research community has gotten and as savvy as the digital government management community has become, the major missing element between the two is the vibrant digital government conversation between them. That conversation also is limp between government and its citizens in a way that opens, rather than hides, government and in a way that empowers citizens to own their own government again. We have done the relatively easy work, doing services online and making information web-accessible. My vision for DGS is to accelerate the scholar – manager conversation and collaboration, especially in the service of making digital democracy real, vibrant and consequential to public interest decision-making. The business of government isn’t business but the public interest, and the adventure of digital government is to apply technology to enhance governance and participation. DGS is the natural voice and player to move that agenda forward smartly.

Website: http://www.gsa.gov, https://www.avuedigitalservices.com/VR/Project_Manager_RTM

Oscar Morales

Bio: With over 25 years experience at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Oscar Morales is currently the Director for IT for the Pesticides Program. Previously he was an IT Director within the Office of Environmental Information and the Director for the eRulemaking Initiative, overseeing the implementation of the Agency's FOIA, Privacy Act, Paperwork Reduction Act, the National Records Management Program as well as Data Standards, Metadata Strategies and Enterprise Content Management. As part of the State-EPA Exchange Network, he maintained the Systems of Registries and Repositories including the XML Repository. As director of the eRulemaking Initiative, he oversaw the construction and maintenance of a federal-wide electronic docket management system that will be used by over 200 agencies. eRulemaking is a groundbreaking achievement helping create a citizen–centered eDemocracy that will revolutionize the way the entire federal government writes rules and solicits public comment. In OEI, he constructed the first-ever civilian content and document management enterprise application used throughout the Agency, 10 Regions and 13 Laboratories and ran the State-EPA and International environmental data standards processes. In the Pesticides program he oversees an electronic pesticide registration submission system and process which will allow thousands of pesticide business registrants to submit all the required scientific documentation needed to analyze and register their products in the US and globally. Mr. Morales has an MBA from Wharton and a Masters in Political Science from Texas Tech University and pursued a PhD in Political Science and Policy at the University of Michigan. Oscar is a member of the American Council for Technology, Industry Advisory Council (ACT, IAC), the E-Gov Institute Board, the association for Federal Information Resources Management (AFFIRM). Besides winning numerous awards for eRulemaking, he was selected as one of the 100 IT Senior Government or Industry Managers for 2003 by Government Executive Magazine.

Statement:As a senior Federal IT manager who has participated extensively in the E-Government world, I have long been interested in forging a better relationship/connection between the IT government sector and the IT academic community. As such I have attended many dg.o conferences and have helped nurture several NSF projects and teams well beyond their inception. I believe that e-democracy can be a painful process at times but one that must be attempted because of the benefits it provides to society. In my career I have explored numerous pursuits - combining traditional IT solutions with some very non traditional ones. The journey has taken me to the likes of the Harvard Innovations Competitions, AmericaSpeaks Hyde Park Colloquiums, a national symposium of legal scholars and global gamers, numerous ORACLE technical conferences, virtual discussion groups to settle real world disputes, games used to support military recruitment and peaceful disarmament to the very hollowed and ancient walls of the Office of Management and Budget in DC. It's funny who was willing to give and who was not. I feel passionately about the importance of a hooked up and open society while fully understanding the consequences it poses in the post 9-11 era. I am more than aware of the importance of research conducted by the dg.o and of the many directions it could take in the coming years and would like to help guide that future process.

Costas Panagopolous

Bio: Costas Panagopoulos, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Electoral Politics and the Mater’s Program in Elections and Campaign Management at Fordham University. He is also Research Fellow at the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University. He served as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow in the office of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) in 2004-2005. His academic research focuses on American politics, with an emphasis on campaigns and elections, voting behavior, public opinion and Congress, and technology and politics, and has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, Public Opinion Quarterly, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Electoral Studies, and PS: Political Science and Politics. Dr. Panagopoulos was part of the Decision Desk team at NBC News in 2006 and has provided extensive political analysis and commentary for various print and broadcast media outlets including: The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, CNN, NBC Nightly News, Fox News, and BBC Television.

Statement:It has been a pleasure to serve on the DGS Board over the past year. We have launched several initiatives and I would like to continue to work with the Board to advance these and the other goals of DGS. It would be a privilege to continue to represent the DG community, and especially the social scientists who comprise it.

Website: www.costaspanagopoulos.com

Theresa Pardo

Bio: Theresa A. Pardo is Deputy Director of the Center for Technology in Government located at the University at Albany. She is also a faculty member in Public Administration and Policy and Informatics at the University. Theresa has directed numerous applied research projects with government partners and written articles, research reports, book chapters and case studies focusing on IT innovation in government, cross-boundary information sharing and integration, trust and knowledge sharing, preservation of government digital records, and XML. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Library of Congress, among others. Theresa is co-chair of the North American Digital Government Working Group and serves on various editorial and advisory boards including Government Information Quarterly, the International Advisory Board for Mobile Technologies for the United Nations, the Financial Market Regulation Program at the University at Albany and the Expert Working Group for the EUReGov project. She was recently appointed as a senior adviser to the Informatization Research Institution, State Information Center, P.R. China. Theresa began working as part of the dg.o team in 2004 as program co-chair for dg.o 2005 held in Atlanta. She continued in that role for dg.o 2006 in San Diego. Theresa was then invited by the board of the newly formed DGSNA to serve as conference co-chair for dg.o 2007. During the Society formation process she served as a member of the constitution drafting committee and the first election committee. She is currently chair of the DGSNA sponsorship committee. Theresa is also serving as program co-chair for the 1st annual International Conference on Electronic Governance (ICEGOV) and co-chairs the Emerging Topics Mini-Track for the Hawaiian International Conference on System Sciences. Theresa holds a Ph.D. in Information Science from the University at Albany.

Statement:As a member of the DGSNA board I will work to continue the evolution of the Society as an enabler of critical interdisciplinary and collaborative research and practice both in North America and beyond. The Digital Government Society of North America is in its infancy but this young organization has the potential to provide a permanent venue for continuing the unique and varied activities started through the original NSF digital government program. These activities; research and practical initiatives, partnerships, workshops, and working groups to name a few, have proved to be increasingly robust and valuable both to the academy and to the practice of digital government. The synergy created through this program must be nurtured through these early years if the Society is to be successful in moving beyond is roots to provide the full benefits of a professional society that represents the interests of its members from Canada, Mexico and the United States. The traditions of partnership and collaboration must be institutionalized through the Society. Research across the disciplines is well known to be challenging, yet interdisciplinary research is at the heart of digital government. Collaboration as well is understood to be time-consuming and expensive. Collaboration though is central to digital government efforts; both research and practice. Building a society that reflects the interdisciplinary and collaborative spirit of digital government is difficult but necessary. We each bring the perspectives and traditions ingrained in us through years of research and practice as well as our national and regional cultures; making the DGSNA a success requires us to find ways to meld these traditions and perspectives and to build new ones.

Website: http://www.ctg.albany.edu

Andrew Philpot

Bio: Andrew Philpot has been a research scientist at the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute since 1995. Previously, he was a support service contract employee at NASA Ames Research Center. He holds a M. S. in Artificial Intelligence from Stanford University and a B.S.E. from Duke University. His research is concerned with information integration and artificial intelligence. His special interests include use of of natural language processing and ontologies to support reasoning in complex software systems. Andrew was a software developer of research applications on several NSF-funded Digital Government program projects, including EIA/DOE, US EPA, California Energy Commission, local air resources agencies in California, as well as other federal government efforts for DoD and DHS. He has been an active participant at most past dg.o conferences, has served on the DGSNA communications committee and is currently a co-chair of the System Demonstration and Poster Session at dg.o 2008 and a member of the dg.o 2008 web site development team.

Statement:Our society is still in its early years, but it is not too early to plan for the future. As information technology explodes in the US and Canada and emerges in Mexico, we can take the opportunity to grow along with it. Can we envision a DGSNA that leverages our collective current strengths in academic research and national-government level projects to approach a fuller set of sectors and technology models -- state and local government, vendors and contractors, open source communities, advocacy and constituent bases? I will work toward a society which can provide context and guidance not only to the formally scoped and funded research, policy, and technology transfer projects familiar to the current membership, but can also begin to address the rough-and-ready world of "real IT" in government agencies and affiliated organizations. As an active software developer on digital government projects, this is the kind of professional organization that I would find of greatest value.

Website: http://www.isi.edu/~philpot/

Thomas Riley

Bio: Thomas Riley has been involved in public policy and information issues for over 35 years, beginning his career as an advocate for information and privacy laws in the early 1970s. He is the author of three books on this subject matter (see http://www.rileyis.com for more details). He has researched and written on a wide range of issues in relation to public sector reform and the impacts of information technology for the past twenty years. His international comparative work in recent years has been reported in many different publications and books. He has also been in demand as a public speaker internationally on the role of governments in our changing technological environments. For the past twenty-five years he has sat on the boards of a number of different non-profit organizations in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, dedicated to the development of best practices in the information field and application of information and communication technologies (ICTs) policies in government. He is the co-founder (1999) and Executive Director of the Commonwealth Centre for Electronic Governance (CCEG). The Centre for Electronic Governance has produced numerous studies on e-government, e-governance and e-democracy available on the Centre's web site. CCEG is a designated think tank for the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, UK. (For full details see: http://www.electronicgov.net) Mr. Riley also heads his own company in Canada, Riley Information Services Inc., which has specialized in information laws, information management, e-government, e-governance, e-democracy and the impact of IT on government. The company has provided a wide range of consulting and research services, and has held a series of annual conferences and seminars in Canada and abroad on these issues.

Statement:To assist in continuous development of digital society projects. This would include supporting the goals and expansions of the organization and contributing to the society's goals.

Website: http://www.rileyis.com, htpp://www.electronicgov.net