The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation.
The Open Government Data Camp 2011 takes place tomorrow in Warsaw. We’re really excited. Our press release is below. We’d be grateful for any help in sending this to relevant colleagues and organisations!
PRESS RELEASE: The world’s biggest open data event
Hundreds of public servants, NGOs, journalists and developers will gather in a former factory building in Warsaw this week for what will be the world’s biggest ever open data event.
Over 40 countries around the world will be represented at the camp, from city level projects in Manchester, Montreal or Munich to national initiatives like data.gov, as well as supranational institutions like the European Commission and the World Bank.
Ellen Miller, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Sunlight Foundation, says: “We anticipate that this year’s Camp will convene the open data and transparency movement’s most creative thinkers, doers and advocates, whose conversations will help inspire many enduring solutions for using government data for the public good.”
Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission and Digital Agenda Commissioner, says: “I am thrilled to see so much open data innovation going on in Europe. There is tremendous potential in this area – from enabling next generation public services, to creating jobs in the digital single market. This year’s Open Government Data Camp in Warsaw will enable key stakeholders from across Europe to exchange ideas and expertise.”
Chris Taggart, Founder of OpenCorporates.com, says: “Despite the successes of the past few years, the open data community faces considerable obstacles, from proprietary web services to governments who see open data as a threat. Open Government Data Camp will connect people who are serious about overcoming these issues and using open data to help to solve some of the world’s pressing problems.”
Daniele Silva, part of a grassroots group of over 800 Brazilian hackers and activists, says: “To maximise the value of public data, there is just as much work to de done on the civic society side as there is on the government side. The camp in Warsaw is an opportunity for us to collaborate with groups from around the world to work towards a read/write culture for public data.”
Nigel Shadboldt, who sits on the UK Government’s Public Sector Transparency Board, says: “Open Government Data creates social and economic value, improves public services, makes Governments more efficient, transparent and accountable. This Conference is about ensuring that more people understand how to make this work, more people can tackle the challenges and obstacles that arise, and more people are inspired to continue the work.”
END
Notes for editors
- For further information and interviews contact the organisers at info@ogdcamp.org.
- The Open Government Data Camp 2011 takes place on 20-21st October in Warsaw, Poland.
- It is organised by over 30 organisations, coordinated by the Open Knowledge Foundation (UK) and Centrum Cyfrowe (Poland). A full list is available at:
- Further details at: .
- The event has been recently featured on the Guardian Datablog () and O’Reilly Radar ().
Dr. Jonathan Gray is Lecturer in Critical Infrastructure Studies at the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London, where he is currently writing a book on data worlds. He is also Cofounder of the Public Data Lab; and Research Associate at the Digital Methods Initiative (University of Amsterdam) and the médialab (Sciences Po, Paris). More about his work can be found at jonathangray.org and he tweets at @jwyg.
