Online jury duty sign-up wins top e-government prize

A proposal for a Web-based program that allows citizens to respond to summonses for jury duty online or by phone won the top prize Thursday for innovations in electronic government.

Council for Excellence in Government President Patricia McGinnis presented Tenley Carp, a Washington, D.C. resident who developed Jurysignup.com, a $50,000 check to launch her project. The Imagine e-Government Award, which debuted this year, is administered by the Council for Excellence in Government, a non-profit organization that promotes and aims to improve government peformance, and sponsored in part by American Management Systems and IBM. The award recognizes individuals who come up with innovative ways for government to use information technology to connect with the public. Eight finalists, who presented their ideas Wednesday to a panel of judges from the technology, government and research areas were chosen from among more than 130 entries. The entries were judged on originality, feasibility, and public value. "We asked ordinary citizens, technology experts, government workers-anyone with a good idea-to imagine the untapped potential of the Internet to transform and improve the practices of government," said McGinnis. Other finalists for the Imagine E-Government Award included a Web site that would provide citizens with information on how their tax dollars are used at the local level and an internet-based technology that enables the state of Ohio to conduct fingerprint background checks for schools, nursing homes and day care centers. Mark Forman, associate director for information technology and e-government at the Office of Management and Budget, said that the country has only begun to "tap the potential of the Web to improve governance." Forman, who said that communication is at the heart of e-government, emphasized the importance of creating a dialogue not only between citizen and government, but also between local, state and federal governments. Forman said such information-sharing would make it easier for government employees to do their jobs. The Bush administration has named e-government as one of its five major management initiatives. Both the Senate and House have introduced e-government bills (S. 803 and H.R. 2458) that would create a separate federal chief information office and a centralized government information Web portal and set up an interagency technology fund.