Open Finland 2014 was a pleasant surprise. The speeches were concise, the discussions content-rich, and the arrangements excellent. Prime Minister Alexander Stubb<\/i>‘s opening gave firm political support for transparency, and immediately afterward keynote speaker Beth Simone Noveck<\/a> delivered strong arguments for open government. According to Noveck, the data collected with tax money should be available to taxpayers. Open, transparent governance is more accountable, because people can more easily monitor the acts of decision-makers. Citizens are not merely the recipients of what officials decide; government should enable and encourage them to collect data and analyze it for themselves. One practical example of how citizens themselves can produce knowledge is LakeWiki<\/a>. As Matti Lindholm<\/i> explained, this wiki’s goal is a page for nearly every lake in Finland. Anyone can contribute details about a lake’s condition, temperature, ice situation, or discuss related issues. The Helsinki Central Library<\/a> case was presented as an example of participatory planning. During the design process, the city used campaigns, workshops and participatory budgeting to gather and analyze residents\u2019 ideas and wishes concerning their ideal library. One question heard repeatedly during the seminar was: How do you get citizens to actively participate? Beth Novack replied that the people take part when they are offered enough opportunities for participation. People were certainly very willing to attend Open Finland 2014\u2014more of them, in fact, than the event venue could accommodate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Open Finland 2014 was a pleasant surprise. The speeches were concise, the discussions content-rich, and the arrangements excellent. Prime Minister Alexander Stubb‘s opening gave firm political support for transparency, and immediately afterward keynote speaker Beth Simone Noveck delivered strong arguments for open government. According to Noveck, the data collected with tax money should be available […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,14,15,12],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-english","7":"category-english-en","8":"category-wordoftheweek-en","9":"category-wordoftheweek","10":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1373,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions\/1373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}