1. edUi Plenary
The future of technology, education
and democracy
Melda M. Washington
Information Culture

2. Overview
 edUi
 Aneesh Chopra
 Trends
 Trend #1: Digital Infrastructure
 Trend #2: “Crowdfunding”
 Trend #3: Open Innovation
 Conclusion

3. edUi
 Is a program of the Virginia Foundation for the
Humanities
 Is a conference for web professionals serving
learning institutions
 Share expertise, get inspired, and learn practical
skills from peers and top web industry experts.
 Conference includes four specialized tracks,
including one half-day workshop per track.
 More than 30 speakers offer knowledge and
insights in UX, Design, jQuery, Responsive
Design, Lean UX, Web Accessibility, and more.

4. Aneesh Chopra
 Former US Chief Technology Officer
 Was appointed as the first Chief
Technology Officer of the United States
by President Obama on May 22, 2009.
 Worked to advance the President’s technology
agenda by fostering new ideas and encouraging
government-wide coordination to help the country
meet its goals, from job creation to reducing
health care costs to improving higher education.
 Formerly Secretary of Technology for the
Commonwealth of Virginia from January 2006
until April 2009.

5. Trends/#1-Digital Infrastructure
 Wireless, “Gig” Networks Key to Unlock Future
Growth
 National Wireless Initiative (Wi3) Marquette, MI
 US-Ignite (Case Western) Cleveland, OH
 Longer Hours, Cost-Effectively
 Digital Infrastructure Facilitates 24/7 Learning
 MozillaOpen Badges, Infrastructure for Lifelong
Learning
 Khan Academy, learning anytime anywhere

6. Trends/#2-“Crowdfunding”
 Unlocking a Region’s Capital to Invest in the
Future
 Economic Development, ex. Popularise
 Solar Projects, ex. Solar Mosaic
 Is This the Future of a Region’s Economy?
 Blacksburg Retained High-Growth Heyo
 Austin-based company offered term sheet but req’d
HQ move
 Heyo registered with AngelList; chose to raise $500K
from Dave Cohen, Dave McClure, other luminaries

7. Trends/#3-Open Innovation
 NOAA Spurs Commercial Innovation in
Weather Data
 Weather data - Made available to the public
 Open Standards Lower Entry Barriers
 LearningRegistry a “Tagging” System to Discover
Quality Content
 Open Education Resources Spark New Ideas
 Modeling & Simulation “Flexbook” v. 0.9 Released

8. Trends/#3-Open Innovation
 “Government as a Platform” Highlights APIs
 Bob, Dave, Andrew Embody Spirit of Frictionless
Participation
 We Define 21st Century Democracy
 Technology
Platforms Facilitate a
More Engaged Citizenry
 “Homeowner Bill of Rights”
 “Lean Startup” Team

9. Conclusion
 Twilio developer Tony Webster
builds an app in 2 hours
 The Winning App:
HeroJobs.org
 Using the National Resources
Directory to access the
veterans job opportunity
database, Tony built an app to
help veterans find jobs nearby
based on their Military
Occupational Specialty
powered by Twilio SMS.
 Programmableweb.com lists
239 Messaging APIs.
 The most popular, in terms of
mashups, is the Twilio SMS
API.