GOSCON 2008 to feature Open Government Collaboratives panel

On October 22, government and private industry experts will debate the issues and opportunities presented by collaborative software development models. The distinguished panelists have direct experience with successful public/private consortiums based on the open source software model in which developers as well as business and technical users collaborate to create new applications while sharing both the costs and the benefits.  

The “Open Government Collaboratives” panel will be led by Oregon’s Department of Transportation Chief Information Officer Benjamin Berry and Newport News, Virginia IT Director Andy Stein.  The duo brings years of experience in early adoption of open source software and models in government environments.  Their goal is to draw the audience – primarily state, local and national IT management – into the session and extract a reference model for additional communities on the spot. Distinguished panelists include:

* Arup Patranabish, president and CEO  Anaylze Soft INC.  
* Brian Belhendorf , founder , CollabNet and board member, Mozilla Foundation  
* Dr. Edmund Billing, chief medical officer, Medsphere  
* Stuart Cohen, chief executive, Collaborative Software Initiative (CSI)

* Mel McIntyre, founder and managing director, OpenApps 
* Brian Jamison, co-founder and CEO, OpenSourcery LLC 
* Stuart McKee, national technology officer, Microsoft

Deborah Bryant, conference director, described the panel as a natural progression that has been reflected through GOSCON’s four-year history: from theory and early non- governmental reference models to smaller and more limited projects, and finally to broader and more inclusive communities. Government verticals whose projects range from a national consortium of state departments of corrections to public health IT will be represented at the conference.