This text, part of the #ODDStories series, tells a story of Open Data Day‘s grassroots impact directly from the community’s voices.
As part of Open Data Day 2025, Solvent hosted a workshop, “Open Data for Peace and Development,” in Mukono, Kampala District, Uganda. It brought together tenants, civil society, district representatives, community leaders and open data experts to explore how open data can resolve land disputes and promote peace in Uganda. Participants learned about open land data sources, open land data policies and their role in protecting land rights, harnessing peaceful settlements and enhancing advocacy. Additionally, interactive discussions highlighted the critical role of open data in addressing the ongoing polycrisis affecting communities.
Key recommendations included establishing an Open Data Community Network, advocating for open land data policies, building local leaders’ capacity, fostering partnerships, developing training toolkits, and holding quarterly dialogue sessions. A WhatsApp group was created for ongoing discussions, along with scheduled webinars and Zoom calls to train trainers in open land data usage.
The workshop highlighted open data’s role in transparency, land conflict reduction, and equitable land management, laying a foundation for future community empowerment and policy engagements.
About Open Data Day
Open Data Day (ODD) is an annual celebration of open data all over the world. Groups from many countries create local events on the day where they will use open data in their communities. ODD is led by the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) and the Open Knowledge Network.
As a way to increase the representation of different cultures, since 2023 we offer the opportunity for organisations to host an Open Data Day event on the best date over one week. In 2025, a total of 189 events happened all over the world between March 1st and 7th, in 57 countries using 15+ different languages. All outputs are open for everyone to use and re-use.
For more information, you can reach out to the Open Knowledge Foundation team by emailing opendataday@okfn.org. You can also join the Open Data Day Google Group or join the Open Data Day Slack channel to ask for advice, share tips and get connected with others.
