I had the opportunity today to attend eDemocracyCamp2 in Washington, DC, an un-conference modelled after the BarCamp conferences going on across the country.

Edemcamp is an un-conference - described as “an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants who are the main actors of the event.”  They started with BarCamp in a couple cities, and have no sprung up all over the country in various cities and covering various topics. The gov 2.0 community recently held TransparencyCamp and Gov2.0Camp, and this weekend was eDemocracyCamp, which focused on participation and citizen engagement.

I’ve been to a whole lot of conferences, but this was my first un-conference, and I loved how totally different it was. It’s laidback and informal, free, and best of all, anyone who has an idea can show up in the morning and even decide to lead a session.

So, I did just that. I led a session on youth participation beyond election day. It was a really cool conversation and lots of people had a lot to say on the topic, and I’m excited to see how youth participation in politics will change in the future. I’ll be posting notes/a transcript sometime soon

The best thing about the un-conference is the grassroots, informal atmosphere that allows everyone to share their experiences and generate ideas together, creatively, rather than just listen to the experts.  Definitely a great experience -I love the un-conference phenomenon that is growing all over the country and I definitely recommend anyone with an interest and a barcamp near them, go to it!

Tomorrow begins the Politics Online conference, which explores the intersection of technology and politics — look for a few more posts and potentiallt video posts from me from the conference in Washington.