NewswireTODAY - /newswire/ - Abercynon, Wales, United Kingdom, 2009/03/24 - A law graduate and town councillor has launched what could become the most widely-adopted technology for collaborative policy making and his first target is the European Parliament.

Jonathan Bishop, a Chartered IT Professional and town councilor in Wales, has launched what he calls ‘Petitions 2.0’, a IT system that forms part of his website and which could be a world first for democratic engagement.

Cllr Bishops said: “This system, which came about after research I did on negotiating legal documents, uses opinion poll functionality such as that seen on news websites along with a collaborative tool known as a wiki such as that used by Wikipedia to produce a ‘wipi’, which is an acronym for ‘what I propose is’ and captures the essence of the technology, which is to give users the opportunity to say what their solution is to a particular problem”.

An earlier version of the system has already been used to develop a business plan, and Cllr Bishop now wants to use the system to prepare petitions to be sent to government bodies like the European Parliament. “I have posted a petition on an issue important to many Netizens - Digital Music”, he said, “At the moment Apple have a dominant market position in digital music, but appear to be tying their music software to their hardware, which is something I feel is against the spirit of the European Dream”.

Cllr Bishop (jonathanbishop.eu) is now asking Internet users to sign-up to his website to help decide a final version of the petition to send to the European Parliament so they can consider the issue. Those interested in taking part should visit Cllr Bishop’s website where they can sign-up and make their contribution to the debate.

Agency / Source: Glamorgan Blended Learning Ltd

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