Open Forum Foundation

Programs: We provided remote engagement for nasa's largest event of the year, the it summit, with about 1,000 people attending in person and over 7,000 people from 100 countries participating in the online remote engagement services that we designed and facilitated. We provided a destination website specifically for remote participants that contained a live video feed of most of the in-person presentations, chat functionality to connect remote participants online, and conference calls to enable in-depth discussion of specific issues. We met all three of our mission goals with this event by providing (1) free and open communication between organizations, individuals, and decision-makers; as well as multiple fora between the participants to (2) support the development of practical solutions to real-world issues and (3) exchange ideas to improve government and public communications.

we designed and facilitated the open source summit for nasa, and then produced a document based on the discussions at the event that outlined how they should proceed in order to establish a culture of open source software development inside the agency, and the advantages that they stand to incur from this process. The event included about 200 people in person and 600 people online, and met all three of our mission goals. (1) the open source summit brought together a wide diversity of individuals from civil society, the private sector, and government in free and open communication. (2) there were multiple fora at the event which enables discussion around the development of practical solutions to real-world issues, and also the (3) exchange of ideas to improve government and public communications. The document provided clarity and context so that the agency could better use the discussions at the event.

we facilitate day two of the us state department's office of ediplomacy tech@state events. Each event brings together amazing presenters on a technological topic to educate and inform the attendees. The first day of each event is a traditional conference with speakers and panelists sharing information with the attendees, which are composed of individuals from government, the private sector, and civil society. The second day is an unconference, meaning that the attendees set the agenda the morning of the event based on their interests and needs. These events are held roughly every 4 months with 150-200 people on day one and 50-100 on day two. This satisfies all three of our mission goals by providing (1) free and open communication between organizations, individuals, and decision-makers; multiple fora between the attendees so that they can (2) develop practical solutions to real-world issues and (3) exchange ideas to improve government and public communications.