The North American Digital Government Working Group held its second meeting recently in Cholula, Puebla, Mexico. The group is co-chaired by Theresa Pardo, deputy director of CTG, and Luis F. Luna-Reyes of the Universidad de las Americas, Mexico. The goal of the working group is to better understand the role of technology in the ability of individual nations to respond to domestic problems and to work together in response to transnational problems. The working group’s focus on Canada, Mexico, and the United States will allow the researchers to look at topics that are germane to North America as a whole.

The working group will focus on understanding new models of collaboration required by the global nature of government problems as well as the role of technology in facilitating these inter-governmental initiatives. The group will develop a research agenda that attends to comparative questions about intergovernmental digital government initiatives in North America as well as questions related to North American digital government initiatives that are transnational in nature.

The members of the working group came together at the Universidad de las Americas for three days in November 2007 to continue the working group activities launched during its first meeting in May of 2007 in Philadelphia, PA. The opening day of the working group meeting involved a set of discussions organized around group formation activities, as well as in the subgroups formed during the first meeting.

The design of the second day provided an opportunity to spend a full-day with government officials from a variety of ministries of the Mexican Federal Government and other organizations involved in digital government in Mexico. The morning session consisted of a series of panel presentations on Digital Government, Information Society, and Innovation in Mexico. Following the panels, the working group members met in small groups with the panelists to discuss key areas of common interest and to explore future collaboration efforts.

The meeting also involved a variety of cultural events to provide the working group members with the opportunity to continue building their understanding of the cultures of the three North American countries.

Already, two initial projects are starting to consolidate as part of the research agenda and as potential sources of collaboration among the three countries. These projects include one to explore Border States Information Sharing, and another to explore Full Information Product Pricing Strategies to promote international commerce and regional development.

The North American Digital Government Working Group is one of four groups of international researchers to receive funding to advance digital government (DG) research on issues that cross national boundaries. The funding was made possible through a $1 million grant to CTG from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Digital Research Program (DG).