The International Open Data Hackathon, to take place on 23 February, is a gathering of citizens in cities around the world to write applications, liberate data, create visualizations and publish analyses using open public data to show support for and encourage the adoption open data policies by the world's local, regional and national governments.

The National Democratic Institute (NDI), Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), the Omidyar Network and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) organized the conference "Governing Democratically in a Tech-Empowered World", on 23-24 April 2013, to explore how technology is changing the ways in which democracies function and how to support democratic institutions, particularly in developing democracies, in adapting to these changes. Anders Johnsson, Secretary General of IPU, delivered opening remarks and UN/DESA was represented by Flavio Zeni, Chief Technical Adviser, Africa i-Parliament Action Plan.

TransparencyCamp is an "unconference" for opengov: an event where, each year, journalists, developers, technologists, policy-makers, government officials, students, academics, and everyone in between gather to share their knowledge about how to use new technologies and policies to make our government really work for the people -- and to help our people work smarter with our government.

The international Conference for e-Democracy and Open Government brings together e-democracy, e-participation and open government specialists working in academia, politics, government and business to critically analyse the innovations, issues, ideas and challenges in the networked societies of the digital age.

Personal Democracy Forum is the 10th annual conference that follows how the internet is changing politics, governance, and advocacy. PDF is an initiative organized by Personal Democracy Media. 

The 49th Intersteno congress 2013 will be held in Ghent at the Artevelde University College, campus Kantienberg from 13 to 19 July 2013. For more information  www.intersteno2013.org or www.intersteno.org (Congresses menu - Ghent 2013).

On 14 August 2013, in Singapore, 25 participants from 10 countries of the Asia Pacific Region participated on a one-day training for parliamentary libraries and research services on Strategic Management of ICT in Parliamentary Libraries, organized by the IFLA Sections on Library and Research Services for Parliaments and on Information Technology, the Library of the Parliament of Singapore, and the Parliament of Australia, with the cooperation of the Global Centre for ICT in Parliament. Around 10 librarians and research staff from countries outside the region attended the training as observers.

The school provided knowledge of the most significant ICT standards emerging for legislation, judiciary, parliamentary and administrative documents. The course provided an understanding of their impact in the different phases of the legislative and administrative process, awareness of the tools based on legal XML standards and their constellations, and the ability to participate in the preparation and use of standard-compliant documents throughout law-making process. In particular Lex Summer School aimed at creating consciousness in the stakeholders in the legal domain about the benefits and the possibilities provided by the correct usage of the Semantic Web technologies like XML standards, ontologies, natural language techniques applied to the legal text, legal knowledge modelling and reasoning.

The International Day of Democracy on 15 September was established by the United Nations in 2007 as an opportunity to review the state of democracy in the world. Democracy is as much a process as a goal, and only with the full participation of and support by the international community, national governing bodies, civil society and individuals, can the ideal of democracy be made into a reality to be enjoyed by everyone, everywhere.

The first physical meeting of the WSIS+10 High- Level Event Open Consultation Process took place in Geneva at the ITU Headquarters, Geneva.  It was an open and inclusive consultation among WSIS Stakeholders (governments, private sector, civil society, international organizations and relevant regional organizations) focused on developing multistakeholder consensus on two draft Outcome Documents, to be developed by 1 March 2014 and submitted for consideration by the WSIS+10 High-Level Event: the Draft WSIS+10 Statement on the Implementation of WSIS Outcomes; and the Draft WSIS+10 Vision

The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, in cooperation with the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Parliament of Uruguay,  organized a three-day Regional Workshop for Latin American parliaments on “ICT Strategic Planning and Use of Social Media in Parliaments”, hosted by the Parliament of Uruguay in Montevideo on 23, 24 and 25 October 2013.

The workshop was organized within the framework of the Exchange Network of Parliaments of Latin America and the Caribbean (ENPLAC) and built on previous activities carried out by UN/DESA in Latin America through the Global Centre for ICT in Parliament and the project funded through the United Nations Development Account Supporting the Establishment of a Latin American Parliamentary Knowledge Network.

Social networks, blogs, and online media offer citizens access to public life in an unprecedentedly direct way. Is the internet revolutionising democratic practice? This topical question will be raised this year during the World Forum for Democracy, organised by the Council of Europe with the support of the French government, the Alsace Region and the City of Strasbourg.