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 Yamila Nieto from Fundación Conocimiento Abierto in Argentina who received funding from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to run a Data Camp on gender and diversity before spending the next few months developing local apps using open data.

Our Data Camp Gender and Diversity event took place on 7th March to mark both international Open Data Day and International Women’s Day. The event promoted proposals and projects which used data and technology to help shrink the existing gender gaps.

Almost 100 people attended the event which was held in the spaces provided by La Maquinita Co and Innovation Lab. Many national and international organisations also lent their presence and support,  including Open Heroines, UN Women, Mujeres en Igualdad, Mujeres en Carrera, Fundación Huésped, Trans Argentinxs, Directorio Legislativo, Woman Techmakers Río de la Plata, Colegio de Sociólogos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires and Wikimedia.

The event aimed to connect the community of data and tech professionals, members of different organisations, academics, activists for women’s rights and the LGBTIQ community.

This ambitious initiative tackled different problems with four workshops mentored by different organisations:

1. Gender and justice: Addressing the problem of accessibility to information and resources for women who have experienced gender violence. The challenge was led by Mujeres en Igualdad.
2. Comprehensive sex education: Since the passage of the comprehensive sex education law in Argentina, a tool has not been developed at the government level that allows monitoring of its application and scope. The challenge was led by Fundación Huésped / Colegio de Sociólogos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires.
3. Diversity and inclusion: Although Argentina has recently made progress in the legislative field for diversity and inclusion, gaps still persist at the social and cultural level. In regards to tourism, discrimination against members of the LGTBIQ collective persists in different areas. The challenge was led by Trans Argentinxs.
4. Economic violence and gender: Economic gender violence is one of the types of violence that is more normalised, and less visible in Argentine society. Although there is a law against it, the country has little official data about it. The challenge was led by Mujeres en Carrera.

The Data Camp Gender and Diversity provided a creative space to prototype a solution to each problem raised, but the projects won’t stop there. Each of the projects is being followed up by Open Knowledge Foundation, Media Chicas, and each of the organisations it led each problem, in order to bring them to fruition within the year.