The Apps for Democracy Finland - contest is a category of the 2009 MindTrek competition. The category is organized collaboratively by MindTrek, Somus research consortium, Forum Virium, suomi.fi portal and the Ministry of finance. The organizers will not be held responsible if due to a case of force majeure or unexpected event, this competition has to be cancelled, postponed or modified in any way. These conditions include a lack of financing for the event and an insufficient number of projects entered. Patron of the competition is Jyrki Kasvi and sponsor for the library category is the Helsinki City Library.

Somus

The main responsible for organizing the competition is the Somus reserach consortium. “Social media for citizens and public sector collaboration” (Somus) is a research project funded by the Academy of Finland during 1.1.2009-31.12.2010. The Somus project will create new understanding of citizenship, publicity and participation in decision-making in the era of social media. Open, citizen-driven media must support the different phases of participation: public definition of common problems, collection and accumulation of knowledge and other competencies, development of socially grounded innovations, and actual decision-making.

MindTrek

MindTrek Association organises the annual MindTrek conference and the MindTrek competition and arranges different kinds of seminars and workshops on important themes in the field of digital media. This year the Apps for Democracy Finland - competition brodens the offering of MindTrek competitions. MindTrek supports the publicity of the competition, offers competition website and hosts the awards gala.

Forum Virium

Forum Virium supports the competition publicity, helps in collecting the data catalog and sponsors  part of the price money. Forum Virium Helsinki is a network supporting the development of the digital services, it is creating real-life test environments to the metropolitan area of Helsinki.

Suomi.fi and Ministry of Finance

Govenmental partners in the competition are the Ministry of Finance and suomi.fi portal. The Ministry of Finance sponsors part of the price money and the public data catalog is hosted in the suomi.fi portal. The ValtIT department of the Ministry of Finance is responsible for centralized steering and production of IT services for the state organizations. Suomi.fi is a one-stop portal for Finnish public sector online services.

Competition Patron

Member of the finnish parliament Jyrki Kasvi is the patron of the competition.

Sponsor

The Helsinki City Library sponsors part of the price money.

Contact

Competition Chair

Antti Poikola
+358 44 337 5439
antti.poikola(at)tkk.fi