Can government be cool? Federal agencies, contractors, online developers and policy wonks will find out this week at the Gov 2.0 Expo -- a forum for 21st century advocates across the spectrum to learn about government interaction with technology, the Internet and social media.

O'Reilly Media, the publishing and technology development company, is co-sponsoring the three-day event along with UBM Tech Web. The Expo starts Tues., May 25 at the Convention Center in downtown Washington, DC, and runs through Thursday. Participating groups include government and defense departments and contractors, foreign embassies, the Library of Congress, the American Federation of Teachers, Google, IBM and universities nationwide. OhMyGov is a Gov 2.0 Expo media partner.

"We want to work on what matters," said Expo co-chair Laurel Ruma of O'Reilly. Ruma has been promoting the conference as a Gov 2.0 "evangelist" by talking, tweeting and creating webcasts explaining some of the planned programming.

"I've always been fascinated with the government," Ruma told OhMyGov.com. "I had a Census cupcake party this year."

Ruma referenced her Maine upbringing where town hall meetings are a commonly used tool among politicians. Many of the Expo's sessions will follow this brand of open forum discussion.

The idea of hosting this kind of conference began two years ago, Ruma said, when O'Reilly founder Tim O'Reilly approached the company's editorial staff about promoting and discussing "what really matters"- things such as green technologies, "cloud computing," and programs like Google mail that allow remote access to users.

Check out some of the marquee sessions taking place at Gov 2.0 Expo this week:

Doing a 24/7 Job in a 9-5 Culture: A Balancing Act for Government Workers on the Web -  Public transit and transportation experts from San Francisco, Chicago and Massachusetts will host a workshop about the nuances of government employees using social media in their professional fields. (Tuesday at 9:00am in room 207B)

Apps for the Army - Lt. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sorenson, U.S. Army chief information officer, will outline the first Apps for the Army contest to develop web, mobile and experimental applications for Army personnel. (Tuesday at 5:10pm in Ballroom A)

Gov Tech Clinic: Bring Us Your Problems - Through this veritable "Geek Squad" open forum,  technologists, including host organization O'Reilly Media founder and CEO Tim O'Reilly, will make themselves available to help solve participants' government technical issues. (Wednesday at 11:0am in the Expo Hall)

Lessons from Down Under: How Australia is Leading the World in Gov 2.0 - A panel from  varying levels of the Australian federal and the private sectors will outline their country's Gov 2.0 initiatives, such as the recent move to publish their federal budget online. (Wednesday at 11:00am in room 201)

"Open Source Spying: 2010" - Based on a 2006 in-depth New York Times Magazine article by the same name, author Clive Thompson will discuss improvements in super-secret spy data networks alongside other intelligence community experts. (Wednesday at 2:05pm in room 202A)

Security in the Cloud - A panel of experts, including Peter Mell from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, will discuss the security implications of cloud computing in government agencies, businesses and other organizations. (Thursday at 11:45am in room 202B)

Shifting from Need-To-Know to Need-to-Share - Don Burke from the Central Intelligence Agency will join other defense experts to present research into safely sharing knowledge amongst government workers. (Thursday at 10:40am in room 207A)

Featured speakers include:

    * Dave Girouard, President, Google Enterprise

    * Tim Berners-Lee, World Wide Web Consortium Director

    * danah boyd, Microsoft Research

    * Linda Cureton, NASA CIO

    * Jack Dangermond, ESRI Founder and President

    * Anil Dash, Expert Labs

    * Mary Davie, General Services Administration Assistant Commissioner

    * Bill Eggers, Deloitte Director and author of the book, Government 2.0

    * Price Floyd, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs

    * Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs Director

    * Jeff Jonas, IBM Distinguished Engineer, Chief Scientist IBM Entity Analytics

    * Tim O'Reilly, O'Reilly Media, Inc. Founder and CEO

    * Jay Parkinson, The Future Well Partner and Co-Founder

    * Alec Ross, State Department Senior Adviser on Innovation

    * Gary Vaynerchuk, VaynerMedia Partner and Co-founder

Ruma suggested getting to the conference early and bringing water and powerbars. But above all, she encouraged engagement amongst participants.

"I have one assignment for everyone," she said. "Ask one person you don't know, ‘What session did you like?'" The Gov 2. Expo website has a complete event listing.

Admission to the Expo Hall is free. Use registration code: gxp10mx5

For full access to the conference, save 15% using by using registration code: gxp10mp5