MySociety

mySociety is an e-democracy project of the UK-based registered charity named UK Citizens Online Democracy, that aims to build "socially focussed tools with off line impacts". It was founded by Tom Steinberg in September 2003, and started activity after receiving a £250,000 grant in September 2004. Steinberg says that mySociety was inspired by an article by James Crabtree on openDemocracy, [http://www.opendemocracy.net/media-edemocracy/article_1025.jsp "Civic hacking: a new agenda for e-democracy"] .

In response to the [http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/index_en.htm 2005 EU Directive on Reuse of Public Sector Information] , the UK government created an [http://opsi.gov.uk/about/hmso-history.htm Office of Public Sector Information] to promote public sector information reuse. OPSI now runs a [http://www.opsi.gov.uk/unlocking-service/OPSIpage.aspx?page=UnlockIndex government data unlocking service] to help people find and reuse government data with licensing or format restrictions.

In March 2006 The Guardian started a [http://www.freeourdata.org.uk/ Free Our Data] campaign, which got [http://www.inspire-geoportal.eu/info.htm?tour=INSPIRE INPIRE] , a proposal for free open geodata, passed into EU law.

In April 2007, Cabinet Office Minister Hilary Armstrong commissioned Ed Mayo and mySociety director Tom Steinberg to draft a "Power of Information Review" on how the government could serve the public's information needs better. [ [http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/newsroom/news_releases/2007/070405_power.aspx The Power of Information Review: online advice sites could improve citizen empowerment ] ] [http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/reports/power_of_information.aspx The resulting report] led Cabinet Minister Tom Watson, MP to create a [http://powerofinformation.wordpress.com/ Power of Information Task Force] . [ [http://powerofinformation.wordpress.com/about/ About the Task Force « Power of Information Task Force ] ] They launched the [http://showusabetterway.com/ ShowUsABetterWay] competition to award £20,000 to the best application reusing public government data.

External links

* [http://www.mysociety.org/ mySociety website]
* [http://www.ukcod.org.uk/ UK Citizens' Online Democracy] , the charity that owns mySociety

References