Publication Release
Register for Public Money, Public Code Guide Releasing Event!
FNF Global Innovation Hub's release event for the publication "Public Money Public Code" will take place on 12 November 2022
© FNFWe will hold a releasing event for our Public Money? Public Code! A Guide for Governments and Civil Society on November 12, 16:00-18:10 (UTC+8) at Foundation for Future Generation, Taiwan(青平台）and on webex! English-Chinese two way simultaneous interpretation will also be provided. Participants will be invited to play Open Starter Village table game together! Please register by clicking here!
About the Guide
In 2022, FNF Global Innovation Hub published Public Money? Public Code! A Guide for Governments and Civil Society. Mr. Franklin Weng, the author of this guide and the president of Software Liberty Association Taiwan, used easily understandable language and examples of daily scenario that civil servants and the public encounter to help readers to painlessly grasp technical terms such as open source, FLOSS software, and open standard. Also, the Guide explains why Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) is the key to improve transparency, accountability, accessibility, and effectiveness of public digital service. It enables readers to establish Public Money? Public Code! as the mindset of perceiving public digital service: If a public digital service is built by using tax payers’ money, it should be supervised and examined by them as all public infrastructure. Finally, the Guide also provides practical policy recommendations on enhancing the use of FLOSS in governments.
Purpose of this Guide
Challenges to democracy have been rising massively in the digital realm, partly because public digital services and infrastructure in many countries are made like a black box. People are not allowed or not able to supervise them. Because of that, authoritarian regimes can use technology as a tool for surveillance, while in democracies, the transparency of public digital infrastructure and service also left much to be desired. In both types of regimes, without proper regulations, enterprises’ pursuit of profits may also hinder people’s rights to have safe and accessible digital service. The idea of FLOSS software is one of the possible solutions to the current challenges. It urges that the code of public digital service should be released for public supervision. It also creates more possibility and choices for governments to flexibly and effectively establish and apply digital service. Therefore, we published this guide, hoping to lower the threshold for people to understand technology issues that matter to democracy, and offers them applicable knowledge to decide what an ideal digital service should be.
About the Releasing Event
Offering more education on open source is one of the policy recommendations in this Guide. Therefore, we hope that this releasing event will not only introduce the Guide, but also presents various forms of open source education, such as what we saw in Taiwan: civic tech schools without walls and table games! We hope these examples can inspire the participants to imagine how to design and establish open source education in their communities or area.
As a result, in addition to inviting Mr. Weng to introduce the publication, we will also invite Ms Isabel Hou, chair of g0v jothon and legal consultant of g0v’s Sch001 to introduce how g0v’s Sch001 has been providing open source educations to high school students and citizens since 2019. Civic tech communities will work with teachers and students, and guide them to apply what they learn from g0v’s Sch001 to create their own civic tech projects.
Let’s play Open Starter Village table game together!
Secondly, we will invite Open Culture Foundation (OCF) to introduce their Open StarTer Village table game, which is a game that they developed with FNF Global Innovation Hub together this year. The game aims to enable people to learn open source, open data, and open government in a fun way. Moreover, we will invite the audience to play the game together after all the presentations and discussion session! Audience will be distributed in groups, and OCF and FNF staff will help to guide everyone to play the game. We hope that this trial will help to make the learning of open source interesting, and we hope to have your feedback to bring more inspiration to this game!
Our Speakers:
Serving as the President of Software Liberty Association Taiwan (SLAT), Franklin Weng has been tirelessly advocating for open source in Taiwan and the world since 1993. He led ezgo-a program advocating for applying free and open source software in schools. As a member of the K Desktop Environment e.V (KDE e.V), he has coordinated KDE zh_TW l10n team. He also serves as Migrant Consultant and Professional Trainer for LibreOffice since 2016. From 2018 to 2022, he also held the post of Board of Directors for The Document Foundation, and served the Foundation’s Deputy Chairman from 2020 to 2022.
Isabel Hou is a seasoned attorney focusing on technological innovation and intellectual property law and has served as a legal counsel for various government programs, prestigious companies, and NGOs in Taiwan since 2000. She has contributed to the g0v community since the 1st g0v hackathon in 2012 and became chairperson of the “g0v Jothon” taskforce, which organizes bi-monthly g0v hackathons. Isabel is also a mother of three boys and has keen observation and involvement in the Taiwan public and experimental education system. These experiences led her to co-found the Sch001 [ pronounce school zero] project to provide open-sourced technology education for students and citizens.
Claire Cheng is interested in civic engagement and open government. She has organized workshops to promote open culture via the OpenStarterVillage Board Game for teachers and students.
Click here to see the event agenda.
Click here to register.
Address of event venue: Wu-chang office of the Foundation for Future Generation, 5F, No. 18, Sec. 1, Wuchang St., Zhongzheng Dist., Taipei City