National Consultation on Open Solutions for e-Governance The need for developing standards for interoperability among various e-Governance applications has a great relevance for ensuring success of National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). The government has already created a draft policy, which is open for discussion and feedback from various stakeholder groups (see http://egovstandards.gov.in/public-review/egscontent.2008-08-22.3525430649/b...). Keeping in view the importance of the subject, we have decided to host a series of consultations to generate awareness and to get inputs. The first national consultation in the series is scheduled to be hosted as a dedicated session on "Open Solutions for e-Governance" during Skoch Summit 2008 India @ Work (www.indiaatwork.in) on October 23, 2008 at India Habitat Center from 2.00 pm - 5.30 pm. In this round presentations are expected from Red Hat, TCS, Department of IT, NIC, IBM & Sun Microsystems etc. Since large number of domain experts and users are traveling from across the country to attend this summit and given that the policy is open for public review, this may be an ideal occasion to get a first hand feel. Some of the issues that this consultation seeks to focus on include: 1. Rationale and implications of the draft policy on promotion of e-governance in India ? Feedback and suggestions. 2. What could be the institutional mechanisms for supporting open solution implementations in the government? 3. What are the best examples of open solutions that are worth sharing and replicating everywhere and how can such a sharing be enabled? 4. How to further enhance the skill base for open solution implementations? By hosting a series of multi stakeholder consultations on the subject, we propose to facilitate a deeper understanding and learning of the issues, ideate on solutions and provide an informed participatory feedback into policy from an independent platform. Pre-registered delegates for the summit need not register separately for this consultation. Those who have not registered for the summit and are interested in this session only may request an invitation by sending an email to info@skoch.in latest by 17:30 hrs on 21 October 2008. India @ Work Summit Secretariat 1105-A, Galleria DLF City , Phase-lV Gurgaon -122002, Haryana , India ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Anup Kumar Das New Delhi, India http://www.anup-jnu.blogspot.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Send free SMS to your Friends on Mobile from your Yahoo! Messenger. Download Now! http://messenger.yahoo.com/download.php -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.