SCD 2013 – Impressions in English

About 110 attendees participated in the 2013 Social Community Day, which was held at KOMED in Cologne, Germany, October 24th 2013. The conference focused on the participative aspects of social media through which citizens in NRW state can actively influence politics and society. It gathered experts in the field of social media that addressed the main themes of the event „open government – open society. “

The conference started at 10:15 AM with its moderator Max von Malotki, who made a short opening. Uwe Kammann, the Director of the Grimme Institute, continued with greeting the audience and introducing the topics of the conference. Dr. Angelica Schwall-Düren, Minister for Federal Affairs, Europe and Media in NRW state, officially opened the conference. She presented new developments in digital society and the transparency of the open NRW state.

„Open Government“ was the topic of the first panel of the Social Community Day. Ibrahim Evsan, Social Media Expert, Prof. Dr. Bernd Holznagel from Institute for Information, Telecommunication and Media Law from University of Münster, Matthias Trénel, zebralog, and Dieter Spalink from Department of the Interior of NRW, debated about the security of digital media, network politics and the digitalization of the society.

The topic of the second panel of the Social Community Day was „Open Society“. Social Media and questions about their political importance were discussed by Julian Heck, journalist and blogger, Sebastian Hiltner from JuMP NRW, Katarina Peranic from Foundation Bürgermut and Severin Sperzel from Digitale Gesellschaft e.V.

In the first Workshop, Valentina Kerst from TopicLodge presented the topic „E-collaboration“. She addressed how politicians and citizens can work together and what advantages and disadvantages arise from this collaboration. Elmar Burke, student and Open Data enthusiastic (Offene Daten Moers), led the second workshop with the title „Open Data.“ He presented with enthusiasm what open data are, who creates them and why and who needs them. His speech was followed by active discussion with the audience about the challenges of open data.

The third workshop focused on the features and benefits of „Network Neutrality“. Severin Sperzel opened the workshop by defining the concept of „Network Neutrality“. He continued to explain the meaning that it has for the open society. Workshop four was led by Sabria David from Slow Media Institut and Meik Michalke from Cultural Commons Collecting Society on the topic of „Copyright“. Sabria David addressed questions such as: What drives the digital transformation? What are the reasons for the widespread distribution of Internet and digital media? Meik Michalke introduced the alternative Cultural Commons Collecting Society C3S, which is still in the process of founding and focuses on the allocation of Creative Commons licenses.

Aneta Bohuslavova, Cologne Business School