GOSCON Honors Open Source Innovation with Second Annual Open Source in Government Awards

Portland, Ore – The sixth-annual Government Open Source Conference (GOSCON) concludes this week in Portland, having brought together key players at the intersection of public service and information technology. The City of Portland, in recognition of the value open source software plays in the local economy and the importance of GOSCON in promoting the value of openness in government has declared the week of the conference “Open Source in Government Week.”

The GOSCON Open Source in Government Awards tradition began at last year’s conference in Washington DC. The awards recognize government employees who have made significant accomplishments in the application of Open Source technology in support of their agency mission. Past honorees include Jay Nath for the DataSF project.

The winners were chosen from public nominations in three categories: Most Resourceful Use of Open Source Software, Outstanding Large Scale Deployment of Open Source Software & Best Intergovernmental Collaboration. Nominations were received for all centers of government. The Awards Committee also created a brand new award category this year, Open Source Trailblazer, in recognition of long standing achievements in promoting the use of Open Source software in government.

The winners for 2010 are:

Most Resourceful Use of Open Source Software

Coleen D. Cason, Webmaster, York County, Virginia for YorkCounty.gov

Ms. Cason receives this award in recognition of her successful conversion of the York County website to a standards compliant open source content management system based portal. Coleen accomplished the transition to great accolades from her management and local citizens, with a staff of one – herself – no formal IT training and no additional budget resources.

Outstanding Deployment of Open Source Software

Daniel Chan, Chief Information Officer, New York Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance

Mr. Chan and his office receive this award in recognition of the successful use of a variety of open source software to create the myBenefits and myWorkspace applications. The applications provide citizens across the state with access to much needed social services benefits and workers with an efficient tool to manage cases.

Best Intergovernmental Collaboration

CONNECT Open Source Software Project, Federal Health Architecture, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT Department of Health & Human Services - ConnectOpenSource.org

With CONNECT, information can be shared securely via the Internet among doctor’s offices, federal agencies, state agencies, disability organizations, public health organizations, pharmacies and other health stakeholders. This enables information to follow patients anywhere in the United States, giving caregivers a complete health information picture. The collaboration that led to CONNECT’s development is unprecedented in the federal government. CONNECT was developed by more than 20 federal agencies working together through FHA, rather than each agency independently building their own health gateways. It has saved the government an estimated $200 million in development costs.

Open Source Trailblazer

Andy Stein, Director of IT, City of Newport News, Virginia

Mr. Stein’s willingness to support other like-minded collaborators and his passion for open government earned him the first GOSCON “Open Source Trail Blazer” award.. In October, 2008, he was named to the volunteer post of Senior Advisor to Aneesh Chopra, then Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia on Open Collaboration. In May, 2009, he was named on the Government Technology list of 2009 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers. He is also long-time GOSCON Conference Committee member.

Mr. Stein has worked tirelessly for a decade to promote collaboration within government. He threw his shoulder behind early open source efforts such as the Government Open Code Collaborative with Massachusetts and others in the federal Core.gov initiative, and, with his staff, built and shared an entire eGovernment platform based on the open source Plone content management system.

About the OSU Open Source Lab: The Oregon State University Open Source Lab is the home of growing, high-impact open source communities. Its world-class hosting services enable the Linux operating system, Apache web server, the Drupal content management system and more than 50 other leading open source software projects to collaborate with contributors and distribute software to millions of users globally. Through custom software development, vendor partnerships and industry events like the Government Open Source Conference (GOSCON), the Lab's staff and students encourage open source adoption in education, government, health care and other sectors. For more information, visit www.osuosl.org.

Media Contact:

Todd Simmons, Oregon State University, +1.541.737.0790

Source:

Deborah Bryant, Oregon State University, +1.971.533.8050