This document summarizes reflections from the World e-Parliament Conference 2016. It discusses themes like the strategic use of ICT, data and documentation, openness and engagement, and web and social tools. Some key points are that ICT is critical for parliaments and requires strategic planning, open data and documentation standards create benefits, engagement helps make parliaments more open and involve citizens, and digital tools are transforming parliaments' work and relationships with the public. Challenges discussed include the skills needed for new technologies and ensuring all countries can participate.

1. REFLECTIONS LESSONS
LEARNED AND FUTURE
PERSPECTIVES
DR ANDY WILLIAMSON
Democratise
andy@democrati.se
@andy_williamson

2. World e-Parliament Conference 2016 #eParliament
THEMES
Strategic use of ICT
Data and documentation
Openness and Engagement
Web and Social tools
Supporting Parliaments

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STRATEGIC USE OF ICT
ICT is critical to parliaments and planning for it must be at
the heart of what parliament does.
Strategic planning is critical for managing change.
Speed of technology change creates challenges for strategic
investment and planning.
The strategic process needs to consider the role of citizens in
the work of parliament.

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DATA AND DOCUMENTATION
XML-based systems have technical and efficiency
advantages in terms of efficiency of query processing.
Open data is a critical tool for empowering parliamentary
openness for for getting more people involved
Moving parliamentary documentation from proprietary to
open open standards creates significant benefits.
Parliamentary data isn’t that ‘big’ and most isn’t complex.

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OPENNESS AND ENGAGEMENT
Parliamentary openness helps people feel they can be more
involved in their parliament.
Important to share all parliamentary information and
consider at a high level how to engage the public more.
Dialogue with civil society groups helps parliaments
understand what is wanted and how to deliver effectively.
Sharing code and schema through mainstream tools and
platform such as Github.

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WEB & SOCIAL TOOLS
Rise of virtual parliaments and parliamentary functions.
Use the tools the public already engages with.
This is an eco-system and so consider how to move people
along to the best tool for the job.
Information overload and the high-volume nature of social
media creates significant challenges.
Sometimes we have a tendency to make digital solutions too
complicated, often it is the simple ideas that work.

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CHALLENGES
XML, open data and managing social media requires new
skills and knowledge.
There is a real risk of the gap between high and low income
countries because of cost and complexity.
How do MPs who genuinely want to engage manage the
workload and expectation of citizens?
How do we ‘humanise’ the process and the people?

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EMERGING TRENDS
Digital is so embedded it will cease to be an independent
domain.
Joining up data from parliament and other sources needs
new technologies, such as semantic web and ‘document-
oriented’ data stores.
Driving all our data via APIs so even you are the customer.
What is the cultural impact on ‘everything is open’?

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CONCLUSION
Digital tools transform how parliaments work, both day-
to-day and with new ways of thinking, innovative
parliamentary practices and a stronger, more vibrant
culture of openness and transparency.
Sustainable development requires strong institutions
that are open, trustworthy and transparent.
Becoming open creates challenges so we need to work
together to support parliaments to transform.