Folks involved in internet politics in Europe are often in awe of their counterparts in the USA, a sentiment further underlined by the Obama phenomenon. In light of that the folks behind Personal Democracy Forum, one of the biggest US conferences dedicated to politics and the internet, organised a European conference in Barcelona in November 2009. I was lucky enough to attend and while sitting there listing to people evangelizing about Obama started to think it was time to do the opposite… to present the best of European tech politics to an American audience.
I teamed up with Bente Kalsnes to present the idea to the organisers – thankfully accepted – and we will run a panel on the topic for the 2010 conference in New York. I’ll moderate the discussions and Bente, James Crabtree and Benoît Thieulin will be the presenters.
But what are the best internet politics projects in Europe? This is where we need your help. Bente and I have put together a list of some of the best projects we are aware of, and listed them at a small website – bestof.techpolitics.eu, but there are undoubtedly others. We would welcome additional suggestions posted in the comments there, or posted on Twitter using the tag #besttechpol. We’ll credit any good ideas in our presentations and, above all, we’re sure to compile a list of excellent initiatives this way – anyone can use those lists.
So get thinking!