Dries Buytaert

Mollom at TechCrunch Belgium Meeting

A couple of weeks ago we presented Mollom at the TechCrunch Belgium Meeting organized by Robin Wauters, our Belgian Michael Arrington (i.e. Robin writes for TechCrunch and is the organizer of the Plugg conference).

Mike Butcher of TechCrunch UK was invited to cover the event as part of his TechCrunch Euro Tour. He just posted his round-up of the event, titled "Yes, even Belgium has startups", and concluded his Mollom summary with the words: "I think this has long legs.". Thanks Mike!

Belgium.be using Drupal

Belgium.be, the official website of Belgium, is using Drupal at http://forum2010.belgium.be. This forum site has been put together in preparation for our Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2010.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect is the fact that the site was built in less than 10 days. The Chancellorship of the Prime Minister picked Connexion to build this site with the help of Internet Architects.

The site is available in 4 languages so all Belgian citizens can express their opinions and engage in interactive discussions about European issues.

Joëlle Milquet using Drupal

After Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme, Deputy Prime Minister Joëlle Milquet also started using Drupal. Check it out at http://milquet.belgium.be. More information in this IT Professionals article (Dutch).

RTBF using Drupal

RTBF, the national broadcasting organization of the French-speaking part of Belgium, switched to Drupal. See http://www.rtbf.be. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the design but it must be one of the biggest Drupal deployments in Belgium. The site was built by One Agency. (Hat tip: Kristof De Jaeger.)

Belgian Prime Minister using Drupal

Today, a new Belgian government has been sworn in, ending a political deadlock of nine months. With our new government comes a new Prime Minister, and with our new Prime Minister comes a new website. It's not quite the same as the constitutional reform that was promised many months ago, but at least the Prime Minister's official website is using Drupal: http://premier.be. Snickers.

Belgian government using Drupal

The Belgium government is using Drupal at http://invest.belgium.be.

It is the website of "Only in Belgium", a campaign to promote companies to invest in the Belgian industry. The campaign, and the accompanying website, are being promoted in the media and on national television.

The design of the "Only in Belgium" website was done by Prophet and the implementation was done by dotProjects -- two Belgian companies.

I'm told that the "Only in Belgium" website will be translated to seven languages, and that the Belgian government has additional Drupal sites in the pipeline. Good stuff!

It's great to see Drupal gain some traction in governments. If you think about it, Drupal is also the ideal tool for local government websites: it is powerful technology that is cheap and independent and that lends itself to collaboration. Local governments could team up with other towns and local web development shops to work on a common technology platform. What is often missing are local Drupal experts that want to coordinate such initiatives.

Donna using Drupal

Radio Donna, a big Belgian radio station, relaunched using Drupal. Check it out at http://donna.be. My favorite radio station, Studio Brussel (StuBru), was already using Drupal.