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Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 1:00 pm Transparency and Open Government Vivek Kundra, our Chief Information Officer, and Beth Noveck, Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government, explain the Open Government Initiative On January 21, 2009, his first full day in office, the President issued a Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government and called for recommendations for making the Federal government more transparent, participatory, and collaborative. As Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President says in the video below, we are proud "to announce an important next step in this historic call to action - one that will help us achieve a new foundation for our government - a foundation built on the values of transparency, accountability and responsibility." The Administration is committed to developing those recommendations in an open fashion. Consistent with the President's mandate, we want to be fully transparent in our work, participatory in soliciting your ideas and expertise, and collaborative in how we experiment together to use new tools and techniques for developing open government policy. Today we are kicking off an unprecedented process for public engagement in policymaking on the White House website. In a sea change from conventional practice, we are not asking for comments on an already-finished set of draft recommendations, but are seeking fresh ideas from you early in the process of creating recommendations. We will carefully consider your comments, suggestions, and proposals. Here's how the public engagement process will work. It will take place in 3 phases: Brainstorming, Discussion, and Drafting. Beginning today, we will have a brainstorming session for suggesting ideas for the open government recommendations. You can vote on suggested ideas or add your own. Then on June 3rd, the most compelling ideas from the brainstorming will be fleshed out on a weblog in a discussion phase. On June 15th, we will invite you to use a wiki t