Open Data Day is an important date for a broad community that works for a more open world, where information can benefit more people.  To support the efforts made by different groups and organizations on this day, we have developed the Open Data Day mini-grants, where, along with other organizations interested in having a more open world, we provide funds to events in different parts of the world.

Since we started the mini-grant program we have seen a growing number of events with great ideas to make open data work for more people. Each of these organisations will receive $300 to cover for the different things they need to run their events.

Without further ado, we present the mini-grant supported events for this year and their organizers.

  1. OpenStreetMap Catalá will go out to the streets to obtain accessibility data of the city and edit them on the map.
  2. Code for Columbus will leverage the city’s new open data portal as well as open data sources from the regional planning commission to gain insight into social problems in the city.
  3. Técnicas Rudas wants to disseminate the use of open datasets on the incidence of violence and criminality to map femicides at the municipal level for all of Mexico, as well as to visualize relationships with other types of violence such as kidnappings, robbery, or homicide.
  4. Open Knowledge Brasil / UG Wikimedia in Brazil will scrape several databases, create fully-described items with lots of props for all existing dams in Brazil on Wikidata after the Brumadinho dam disaster.
  5. YouthMappers Kenya and OpenStreetMap Kenya will have an introduction on what open data is, training on how to contribute to the OpenStreetMap project by working on an existing project in Kenya and finally how this data can be accessed and used in various sectors e.g. urban planning, agriculture etc.
  6. The Center for education and transparency will host a discussion with Serbian citizens, local government, media and civil society representatives on the subject of opening geospatial data in Serbian municipalities
  7. Code for Curitiba will train people to perform the collaborative data mapping of the city of Curitiba with real experiments.
  8. OpenStreetMap Taiwan and Wikimedia Taiwan will host a series of events to improve the geographic data quality of hospital education and woman related items on Wikidata and will add the corresponded geographic information on Wikidata for galleries, archives, libraries, and museums, hoping to make a map for GLAM in Taiwan.
  9. Open Data Delaware will use the day to progress on existing civic projects and to introduce the projects, as well as the ideas and key concepts of Open Data and transparency, to a broad audience from their local community.
  10. In Argentina, the Centro Latinoamericano de Derechos Humanos (CLADH), Fundación Nuestra Mendoza, the Journalism School of the Universidad Maza, and the Public Policy and Planning Direction of the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo will work with youth to analyze data and identify how many women have official positions in different levels of government. They want to do a report on this.

  1. AfricArxiv wants to raise public awareness about the importance of science in French-speaking Africa (and Benin in particular) of joining the open science movement and getting involved in data openness.
  2. The Librarians at the Bindura University of Science Education (BUSE) will make work with faculty members to demystify the concept of open data. They will present and discuss the way forward and advocate for the establishment of an open data repository at BUSE.
  3. The Association for the Promotion of Open Science in Haiti and Francophone Africa will sensitize the researchers of the University of Yaoundé I to adopt best practices of open research data.
  4. The Young Academy of Slovenia will gather people to raise awareness of the importance of sharing open data among young researchers from different scientific fields, from natural science to social sciences and humanities.
  5. Africatech will bring together researchers, biologists, environmentalists, professors, policy-makers and experts to discuss issues related to open science in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
  6. Sociedad para la Ciencia Abierta y la Conservación de la Biodiversidad (SCiAC) in Costa Rica will develop a training workshop on the use of tools to release data. They will also train on coding to analyze data in environmental sciences to contribute to reproducibility and science teaching.
  7. HackBo and mutabiT want to bridge reproducible research and publishing techniques with data activism to create a booklet on those topics using the Panama Declaration on Open Science from the Global South, using such declaration as a use case, showcasing the Open Science tools and techniques for/from the Global South that we have been developing and using since 2014.
  8. Fundación Internet Bolivia.org is going to Create a collaborative repository of Bolivia’s social research databases as a backup to ensure its permanent availability and concentrate databases in one place.
  9. The Centro Latinoamericano de Investigaciones Sobre Internet in Venezuela will showcase the methods and resources of open science, showing them as a valid alternative for university students.
  10. Fundación Karisma will work to improve the quality of open biodiversity data available on citizen science platforms and create a campaign about the importance of these data for science and social action.

  1. The National University of Lesotho will discuss the use of data for sustainable development, focusing on gender equality and youth empowerment.
  2. The Committee for a Better New Orleans will host a game night for New Orleanians to “play mayor for a day” by balancing their city budget via BigEasyBudgetGame.com
  3. Safety First for Girls Outreach Foundation will Showcase a good example of how open data can bring positive change by sharing the learnings from Safety Report: Core Issues Affecting Safety of Girls in Zambia.
  4. iWatch Africa will explore how online data tools can use open data on violence and discrimination against women and girls in Ghana and to promote gender equality.
  5. Escuela de Fiscales will run a workshop to introduce people to open data, show impact cases and debate the best approach to engage people in the context of upcoming elections
  6. EldoHub will work with young people to equip them with knowledge on how they can leverage on open data/open government, find opportunities for meaningful employment (inclusive jobs for disadvantaged African youth) and how they can help local government to be more open for inclusive youth participation.
  7. Open Knowledge Colombia wants to demonstrate and to raise awareness on salary differences among genders in Colombia and start a debate on the rights and inequalities of women in the Colombian society through open data.
  8. NaimLab will work in the city of Chiclayo to decentralize the use of open data from the capital and foster the use with a community of activists and civil society organizations, promoting transparency of public information and generate follow-up from citizen participation.
  9. Economía Femini(s)ta wants to estimate the annual cost of menstrual management products per person in 2019 in Argentina and to make an infographic with such estimations.
  10. The Women Economic and Leadership Transformation Initiative (WELTI) will explore what role data plays with regards to women’s health with an emphasis on cancer.

  1. Abriendo Datos Costa Rica will track the status of public works that use public money in different parts of the country.
  2. BudgIT Foundation will work with grassroots organisations and other people to show how public allocated funds are spent for the benefit of Nigerians
  3. Datos Abiertos Medellín), Exploratorio Parque Explora will open public health data, diseases related with air quality, number of bicycle routes and trees planted versus main goal appearing in the Local Government Development Plan, and other public policy data related with air quality.
  4. Girolabs will bring the community together in an event investigate the last 10 years of funding of political parties from the Electoral Tribunal and the impact of the spending in publicity from the Tribunal to improve the participation in the elections.
  5. Datasketch will review the contracts of public servants in Colombia. By inferring their gender from their name, they will analyze gender salary gaps.
  6. ACCESA will gather the community to highlight the advancements of the agenda on Open Contracting in Costa Rica. They will share the Results for Costa Rica of the   Transparent Public Procurement Rating (TPPR), the guide for Open Data in Public Procurements and the new OGP commitment related to the implementation of OCDS.
  7. Connected Development will bring together data enthusiast with social workers, journalists, government officials, community-based organization (CBO), activists and youth, and share skills with them around using data to enhance their work.
  8. School of Data in Guatemala will create a space to learn skills about how to use public contracts data, guide participants through the data of the State’s Law for Public Procurement, in order to understand on how contracts are carried out in practice.
  9. SocialTIC will showcase and use public open data with a special focus on new data releases from Mexico City’s new administration and national public expenses.
  10. School of Data in Bolivia will introduce people to the basics of open data and open contracting, including talks to learn about cash flows and topics related to the use of public funds through the lenses of gender equality.

 

Together with all the funders [The Open Contracting Program of Hivos, Mapbox, Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom,  the Latin American Initiative for Open Data (ILDA) and the Open Contracting Partnership ] for this years’ ODD mini-grants, Open Knowledge International wants to thank the community for all your applications. We encourage you all you register your event on the Open Data Day website.

To those who were not successful on this occasion, we encourage you to participate next time the scheme is available. To the grantees, we say congratulations and we look forward to working with you and sharing your successful event with the community!

 

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Oscar Montiel is the international community coordinator at Open Knowledge Foundation