On Saturday 7th March 2020, the tenth Open Data Day took place with people around the world organising over 300 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. Thanks to generous support from key funders, the Open Knowledge Foundation was able to support the running of more than 60 of these events via our mini-grants scheme.
This blogpost is a report by Claudia Mariana Loeza Rentería from Sustenta in Mexico who received funding from Resource Watch to share knowledge about sustainable development, climate change and sustainability.
In Mexico, open data is of paramount importance for the transparency of information and education of all Mexicans. According to Kantar World Panel’s latest report, 78% of Mexicans have little or no interest in caring for the environment and do not take action to help improve the global picture. The reason? A huge lack of knowledge and, even though there is access to information, there are other priorities in people’s lives.
This shows an enormous difficulty in leading Mexico towards sustainable development. One of the main reasons why this happens is that there is no understanding of the information available. Scientific development and social understanding of it have not gone hand in hand in our country, so SUSTENTA decided to contribute to science reaching the common population through Open Data Day, sending information regarding sustainable development, as well as resolve questions practically and efficiently.
We made a live broadcast of our Podcast Café con Sustenta. In this special edition of almost 1 hour 17 minutes we talk about 5 specific topics:
- Sustainability
- Sustainable development
- Circular economy
- Climate change
- Energy efficiency
From our team, Mayra, Mariana and Linda were in charge of moderating this transmission, and Felix was in charge of image and sound. Mayra de la Rosa and Rafael Narcio joined us, they are part of Pisteando con Ciencia, a collective dedicated to the dissemination of science in bars all around Mazatlán. Through a phone call, Ana Sotomayor, a private consultant on issues related with energy efficiency and sustainable development, also joined us. And we had international participation in charge of PhD Cecilia Soldatini, an Italian teacher and researcher who shared with us the perspective she had and has about our country in relation to climate change and the topics that she researches.
The logistics of this event occurred 15 days in advance, making an open call to receive all questions, doubts or curiosities that anyone may have in relation to the topics previously described. We received a total of 35 questions, of which we selected 21, as some were repeated. The origin of the questions was not only national but also international, having questions from Guayaquil and Nebraska.
Thus, we explained the basis of sustainable development and how to apply it in activities such as agriculture. It was also explained how to integrate it into academic training in sciences such as geotechnics. Energy efficiency was considered, emphasising that a total change in technology is not necessary to be carried out, but with what is available, significant energy savings can be achieved in any home. Vegetation presence for temperature control in buildings was also considered setting examples of Mexican cities that suffer from high temperatures such as Hermosillo Sonora or Mazatlan itself. Water efficiency was also an issue to be discussed, explaining the operation of dry toilets and establishing scenarios on what consequences would have if this type of eco-technology were applied on a large scale.
Check out our experience! Our results have been shared in an episode recorded for our YouTube channel, find us as SUSTENTAMX (https://bit.ly/2w2kPEX) and on Spotify looking for us as Café con SUSTENTA (https://spoti.fi/2TLaWEY).
