Switzerland - Mountains, Cheese and Technology what a dream
I have a favorite country in this world and it is - besides my love for Tibet - Switzerland. It has mountains to go snowboarding, it has lecker cheese, its beautiful and ALL of the people I meet from switzerland are wonderful quiet non self claiming, but all this is not why I am writing this entry. Just a couple of days ago I blogged that a comfortable future of democracy would be en mass voting. Today now I read that switzerland has such a system already in place and they are extending it to give handicapped (the blind) access to this system. It is not yet replacing any government or any decision makers but it has already been used twice in the Kanton Genf for communal voting proceedures and continues to get used for endorsing or rejecting public funding.
This alone would not make it a Switzerland headliner of course and to some this might be old news anyways. The other internet news of today is of course the world summit on the information society and here the Highland went above itself. They - as a country - have proposed some very noteworthy additions to the final declaration of this summit. Here is a little excerpt:
We propose the addition of a new paragraph 1a:
1a. We reaffirm the indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights - civil, political, economic, social and cultural - and their ties to the principles of a democratic society, the rule of law and sustainable development. In the hopes and perils of the transformation to the information society, we are determined to maintain and strengthen all these values. Information and communication technologies (ICT) provide unprecedented opportunities for realizing all human rights.
Open international standards and open source software must be treated separately. Therefore we propose to shorten 24, to introduce a new paragraph 24a and shorten 42:
24. Open international standards [and open source]: International standards open on a nondiscriminatory basis to the relevant bodies of all countries, at policy level and at any stage of standards development, are a basic element in the development of more affordable access to ICTs.
24a. Open source software: The open source model for implementation of technical standards and dissemination of software is a valuable model to enable and support more affordable access to ICTs. Increased use of open source software can contribute greatly to increasing access and to enhancing the diversity of choice of software for consumers.
read more in the pdf.
also they have a vision to bring government bodies and non government non ruling groups on the same talking table.
respekt switzerland.