Hot on the heels of the weekend’s successful UK GovWeb BarCamp event in London, FutureGov and its event partners Euro guru David Osimo and social computing consultancy Headshift are proud to announce that Public Services 2.0 is next up on the govweb events calendar.

The Public Services 2.0: how to implement and promote user-driven open innovation in public services event will take place on Monday 16th March at the European Commission at their offices in Brussels at the request of the European Commission to help inform their work in this area.

As the blurb about the event says:

Over the last 3 years, we have seen a dramatic rise in user driven, web 2.0 style initiatives in and around public sector service provision. Initiatives such as Patient Opinion, Farmsubsidy and Theyworkforyou all seek to challenge, disrupt and improve on traditional models of public service delivery from the outside, built on the web 2.0 principles of openness, transparency and sharing.

The promoters of this event perceive a GROWING GAP between the innovation culture underlying these initiatives and the way that government approaches ICT innovation in public services. This gap is cannot be filled by repeating the same PRESENTATIONS ON WHAT CAN BE DONE with web 2.0. It is long time to DEMONSTRATE WHAT IS DONE ALREADY and to learn from experience.

There have been similar event in European countries, but it is now long time for a EU-level event: firstly, challenges are similar in different EU countries, thereby making the exchange of experiences particularly meaningful and useful; secondly, we are at a particular moment of re-design of European policies, when a new ICT policy is being discussed following i2010.

The workshop will therefore bring together the best experiences from all over Europe, with two goals:

• share experience and knowledge between the people running these projects, and promote the surge of collaborative initiatives
• raise awareness and better understanding between government officials about WHY and HOW to promote web 2.0 in government

The workshop will focus on:

• projects that apply web2.0 in government, run by civil society, individual citizens, private companies and government
• existing policies on how to enable and promote web 2.0 in government

We intend to make the event highly interactive and hands-on, featuring a number of quick fire 10 minutes presentation of on-going successful projects as well as time in teh afternoon for discussion around the implications for government policy and how best government can engage with this agenda. We expect it to be a lively affair!

As David says on his blog about the event, participation is free and the EC ePractice platform offers premises with wifi and food (thanks EC!).You cna register for the event on the EC’s ePractice site or drop me an email direct, although we have to say that attendance is not guaranteed as space is so tight - sorry!

Sponsors are also welcomed to contribute to travel and additional expenses.

We know its VERY short notice but we’d love to have you there, either to present your project or just to discuss your ideas. So please help us spread the word and let’s make it a memorable event, not just another workshop on web 2.0.