Nick Clegg and David Cameron’s Tory-Lib Dem coalition government today announced a major Crowdsourcing initiative called Your Freedom.

It’s a great start – assuming the public gets beyond their keyboard apathy. But what else could the coalition do?

We believe that the government should go beyond using Crowdsourcing just to source public feedback and opinions and drive Crowdsourcing initiatives into the way in which they govern. Volunteer Crowdsourcing aka Wikipedia or OpenStreetMap have shown that people really can make a difference.

The original definition of Crowdsourcing (Wired Magazine 2006) is ‘the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call’.

Applied to government it could include:

- Public policing. Going way beyond ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ and into volunteer policing using people’s mobile phones to replace CCTV.  After all, people are everywhere. CCTV will never be – thank God! The government just needs to develop a Website that enables citizens to upload and tag/describe photos or video and location.

- Public volunteer healthcare. As the NHS gets chewed by the inevitable cutbacks lets bring back the local volunteer birthing partner. If the government focused on training and educating us on basic healthcare tips, tools and techniques we could do more for ourselves/each other.

- Public volunteer government IT systems. Given the huge debacle of public spending wastage on massive, pointless, outsourced government IT projects why not use our universities and colleges to Crowdsource volunteer student Web and software geeks to help build the government’s future IT systems. Use prizes, PR and internships to reward the students – not trillions dumped into the coffers of big iron outsourcers.

- Crowdsourced street cleaning and garbage collection. Set up volunteer community street cleaning initiatives and rosters rewarding the cleanest boroughs, villages or towns. Also, pay people to dump their own and each others garbage.

- Crowdsourcing small businesses and start-ups to solve big government problems. Use contest based Crowdsourcing to inspire UK entrepreneurs to come up with the next big idea which, once implemented, would help government make innovative step changes to the way in which they improve our lives. Reward the best ideas well.

- Crowdsourcing education. Use volunteer Crowdsourcing to cost effectively deliver tomorrows education and tutoring over the Web. A UK Wikipedia for school education and curriculum. Get Ofsted to edit it effectively rather than just police our schools.

- Crowdsourced public transport. Create an easy to use government Website and mobile app which allows people to car pool quickly and efficiently. Create a points system which rewards citizens with savings on their annual car tax for every ride they volunteer.

That is our kick off list for Nick Clegg et al.

In the spirit of Crowdsourcing ‘comment’ back with your suggestions – we’ll forward the best to the governments ‘Your Freedom’ initiative.