From hovy at ISI.EDU Wed Apr 1 10:01:44 2009 From: hovy at ISI.EDU (Eduard Hovy) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 10:01:44 -0700 Subject: [Dgonline] Registration for dg.o 2009 is now open!! Message-ID: Dear Digital Government Society member, dear person interested in Digital Government! [apologies for multiple copies] I am very happy to send you some information about the upcoming conference in Puebla, Mexico, this coming May (Monday to Wednesday, May 18 to 20). The theme of the conference is Social Networks: Making Connections between Citizens, Data, and Government. Registration is now open!! All information, including the registration forms, travel and accommodation tips, the program of events, etc., can be found on the conference website: http://www/dgo2009.org The two conference hotels are - Hotel Camino Real, Puebla: http://www.caminoreal.com/puebla/ . This is a converted Catholic convent, a charming hotel just a few steps away from the historical center's main attractions. - The NH Hotel in Puebla: http://www.nh-hotels.com/nh/en/hotels/mexico/puebla/nh-puebla.html is a modern, all-convenience hotel in the magnificent historical center. If you reserve a room using one of these two links, please mention that you are participating in the dg.o 2009 conference. Puebla - a wonderful city The city of Puebla is one of the most ancient cities in Mexico. It was founded in 1531 by Bishop Juli?n Garc?s. Puebla is situated in central Mexico, 129 kilometers south of Mexico City. Puebla is beautiful: its downtown has been declared a World Heritage site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Some of the city's main attractions are the colonial district (downtown Puebla), cultural attractions such as local galleries and museums, traditional festivals, historical sites, and monuments. The Pyramid of Cholula, in Puebla, is one of the oldest pyramids in Mexico. It is strongly recommended that you take a day or two before or after the conference to explore Puebla and its environs. You will not be disappointed! The main sessions of the dg.o Conference will take place at Universidad de las Americas-Puebla (http://info.pue.udlap.mx/englishversion/), located in Puebla Metropolitan area and about a kilometer from the Pyramid of Cholula. Traveling to Puebla There are two main ways to travel to Puebla: 1. Flying into Puebla City Airport. There are a few national and international flights to Hermanos Serdan International Airport in Puebla (airport code PBC). Most of them are from Mexico City Airport. But Continental Airlines flies directly from Houston. From the Puebla airport to your hotel, the easiest is to take one of the official taxis at the airport. There is also a shuttle to a terminal close to the historic district, and then you will have to take a taxi from the bus terminal to your hotel. 2. Flying into Mexico City Airport and taking the luxury bus to Puebla. There are many national and international flights to Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City (airport code MEX). You don't have to leave the airport: from the airport, luxury buses (coaches) depart to Puebla every half hour, with service almost 24 hours a day. The bus fare is currently 184 pesos (about US$ 12.00). Travel time between Mexico City and Puebla by bus is about 2 hours. Buses arrive either at Puebla's main terminal in the northwest sector of the city, or at a stop further south, which is closer to Puebla's Historic District. At both of them, there are official taxis to go to your hotel. The taxis are very cheap (no more than 70 pesos per car), and very safe. In one of the two terminals, you have to buy tickets before riding, and in the other one, taxi rides are no more than 5 meters away from the bus. Mexico City airport is safe inside, and you don't need to leave the airport to take the bus to Puebla. If you want to visit a place in Mexico City, it is better to take one of the official taxis at the airport (there are special places to get tickets for these taxis). Is Puebla safe? Yes. Despite the current hyperbole in the US news media, there is no indication that Puebla (or anywhere else distant from the border with the US) provides any cause for concern. The US State Department's official travel Travel Alert to Mexico, dated February 20, 2009, and it travel instructions for government employees, at http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_970.html, lists the cities in which care must be taken. Puebla is never mentioned. If you or anyone you know is concerned, you can minimize risk by flying directly into Puebla from Houston, on Continental Airlines. Or, as described above, you can also fly into Mexico City and take a luxury bus from the airport directly to Puebla. Puebla is one of the three Mexican cities with the lowest problems of urban violence. Downtown Puebla is one of the safest places in the City. All the recent trouble in Mexico is located at the border The Program Our opening Keynote Speaker, Beth Noveck, is an expert on the impact of technology on legal and political institutions, and directs the Institute for Information Law and Policy (http://www.nyls.edu/infolaw) at the New York University Law School. She has just been appointed CTO of the Obama government's Office of Science and Technology Policy. Our Tuesday Keynote speaker is Janice Nall, Director of the Division of eHealth Marketing, National Center for Health Marketing at the US Center for Disease Control within the US Department of Health and Human Services. She is responsible for leading CDC's communication technology efforts. On Wednesday morning, there is a special panel discussion highlighting the use and development of eGovernment in Mexico. On the panel are Andres Hoffman, Politica editor of Politica Digital Magazine, Rodolfo Torres, Mexico Federal Government, and Le?n David P?rez, Coordinator of Information Society and Knowledge. The rest of the program is full of interesting sessions. Panels address topics ranging across the whole spectrum of DG: Building a Sustainable International Digital Government Research Community, New Research on Public Deliberation and Information Technology, State of the Art Perspectives on Health Information Technology, Lessons from the Creation of an International Collaborative Research Team: The North American Digital Government Working Group, and The Next 10 Years of Digital Government Research: Forging Successful DG Research Projects. Research papers cover an extensive range of topics, and the popular Poster and Demo Session is scheduled for Tuesday evening. And this year, the program includes two special tracks: one for Spanish-language papers, and one for Management, Policy, and Case Studies. In addition to the main program, there are four tutorials on Sunday May 17: - Describing, Building, and Using the Public Administration Genome - Using Partial Least Squares (PLS) for Digital Government Research - Social Networking: Technology, Tools, and Applications - A Hands-On Tutorial to Make the Most of the Conference - Understanding and Enabling Networks in Digital Government and an all-day workshop on Multi-channel Management: Putting it into Practice. In conclusion, This is going to be a memorable and fun conference. The local organization team has gone out of its way to make your stay in Puebla pleasant. The Program Committee and conference organizers have assembled an excellent program. I look forward to it immensely....and also to doing some sightseeing around Puebla. Not to be missed! Please see the conference website: http://www/dgo2009.org . See you in 2 months! Eduard Hovy DGSNA President -- Eduard Hovy email: hovy at isi.edu USC Information Sciences Institute tel: 310-448-8731 4676 Admiralty Way fax: 310-823-6714 Marina del Rey, CA 90292-6695 http://www.isi.edu/natural-language/nlp-at-isi.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/dgonline/attachments/20090401/0cdf554b/attachment.html