As Conference Chair, it is my pleasure to welcome you to dg.o 2002, the second annual National Conference on Digital Government Research. Dg.o 2002 is the only national conference to bring together computer- and social science researchers, government officials and employees, representatives of industry, and members of the public to investigate how computers and computer networks can be used to make government information and services better and more conveniently and securely available to citizens.

It is gratifying to see how the conference has grown over the past couple of years. This year we were forced to hold three parallel sessions essentially throughout. While this will mean, unfortunately, that not all sessions can be attended, the alternative was to reject the great majority of proposed talks and panel. This is the clearest testament to the growing interest in this area of research!

We are extremely fortunate to have three distinguished plenary addresses. Vint Cerf, sometimes called the Father of the Internet, will deliver the conference keynote on Monday morning. Dr. Cerf was present when the first IMP was delivered to UCLA and his latest project seeks to extend the Internet into outer space. Joel Birnbaum, Senior Technical Advisor of Hewlett-Packard and formerly Senior VP for Research and Development and Director of HP Laboratories will address the conference on Tuesday. Dr. Birnbaum will discuss the challenges of technology transfer. And on Wednesday we will hear from Stephen Goldsmith, Director of the Institute for Government Innovation at the Kennedy School of Government. Dr. Goldsmith is a Special Advisor to President George W. Bush and was the Mayor of Indianapolis.

Of course, we will also have technical talks, panel discussions on key issues, system demonstrations, poster sessions and Birds-of-a-Feather roundtables. Among the many issues that will be presented, discussed and debated in the next few days are:

• Government data: its integration, privacy, and data displays aimed at
  children
• Multimedia presentation of geospatial, textual, audio-visual, statistical
  and other information
• Digital government and social policy, public infrastructure and planning
• Technology transfer
• Useful and user-friendly interfaces and human-computer interaction
• Biodiversity tracking life cycles of the ecosphere

While we are meeting here to improve digital interaction, there is as yet no
replacement for personal contact. We have arranged for breaks and common
lunches and evening sessions to facilitate collaboration in the development
of great new ideas. We expect to see the results of these at dg.o2003 and
other future digital government conferences!

The conference is generously supported by a grant from the National Science
Foundation. It is being organized by the Digital Government Research
Center. DGRC is a joint center of the USC Information Sciences Institute and
Columbia University.

Yigal Arens
Co-Director, Digital Government Research Center
Conference Chair, dg.o 2002