The Digital Government Society, one of the leading associations in e-government research, held its 16th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (d.go 2015) at the Arizona State University in Phoenix, Arizona on May 27-30. This year’s conference topic was “Digital Government and Wicked Problems: Climate Change, Urbanization, and Inequality”.
This topic perfectly matches WIPCAD fellow Basanta Thapa’s PhD project on Big Data in urban governance, which he was invited to discuss in the d.go 2015 PhD Colloquium. This invitation included the Valerie Gregg International Student Scholarship, which covered conference attendance and one-year membership in the Digital Government Society.
In the colloquium, each of the eight participating PhD students presented and commented on the proposal of another student. Each proposal was then discussed with the students and the attending professors, including Sharon Dawes, Ramon Gil-Garcia, Andrea Kavenaugh and Soon Ae Chun. Basanta Thapa presented a proposal by Adrian G. Brown from the University of Illinois at Chicago about the determinants of civic engagement on US municipal government websites. Basanta Thapa’s proposal “Big Data, Government & Wicked Problems: Shifting Knowledge Politics in Smart Cities” was in turn presented by Beatriz Barreto Brasileiro Lanza from the Universidade Federal do Paraná in Curitiba, Brazil.
Further highlights of the conference included visits to the ASU Decision Theater, the conference dinner at the Heard Museum for American Indian Art & History and a field trip to Red Rock State Park.