Hello Open Knowledge community,
Some conversations about technology and peace never get past the panel stage. This month, together with the PeaceTech Alliance, we’re hosting The PeaceTech We Want Summit – an online, practitioner-led gathering for people working where technology and peace meet. It is built around a peacebuilder-first, Do No Harm approach, and it is free to join. Rather than another round of AI hype, the aim is a grounded conversation about what peacemakers actually need, and where human judgment remains essential.
We’re also wrapping up one phase of our Traceable AI Answers for Public Data work and opening it up for others to try. After pilots with Brazil and Uruguay, the project has produced a prototype that connects AI to open data portals, so people can ask questions in natural language and follow the answer back to the source dataset. We’ve published a new field guide, ‘Connecting AI to Government Data’, and set up a live sandbox linked to International Aid Transparency Initiative data. The point is to make provenance visible, testable, and replicable.
Alongside this, we’re pleased to announce a partnership with GreenPT, a European AI platform hosted in data centres powered by 100% renewable energy. Through this collaboration, we want to put sustainable, privacy-first tools within reach of our global Network – especially communities in the Global South.
There’s more: the full agenda for the Open Technology Research Symposium, the release of CKAN 2.12, new country reports from the SkyCommons Observatory, and updates from our advocacy work (WTO Forum, Green European Journal, GovInsider).
If you’re in Guatemala City for Abrelatam/Condatos or in Barcelona for MozFest, come and find us!
We hope you enjoy the read.
How Can We Build a Movement to Advance Our Technology Efforts to Pave the Way for Peace?
This October, together with the PeaceTech Alliance, the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) is hosting The PeaceTech We Want Summit to bring the open movement closer to those working on peace tech. Grounded in the peacebuilder-first, Do No Harm approach, the summit is for anyone working at the intersection of technology and peace who wants a grounded, practitioner-led conversation rather than another AI hype panel.
Details of the speakers and times for each session will be announced shortly.
Join us:
🗓️ Monday, 19 October 2026
🕐 14:00 — 18:00 CEST
📍 Online, free of charge
Turning Real-World Trials Into Open Blueprints that Any Government or Civil Society Organisation Can Safely Adapt
Last month, we hosted the final session of the Traceable AI Answers for Public Data project under the AI Learning Labs initiative. In collaboration with two national governments (Brazil and Uruguay), we have prototyped an AI integration with open data portals that enables users to ask natural-language questions and receive responses traceable directly to the underlying datasets.
If you missed the live session, you can now watch the full event recording and explore all presentation materials.
A sandbox connected to international aid datasets
To allow everyone to try it out, we have installed our new traceable AI prototype linked to data managed by the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). ↪ Test the tool live
Download Our New Field Guide: ‘Connecting AI to Government Data’
We at OKFN are exploring how to connect AI to public data in a way that builds trust. Our latest publication shares our pilot process and invites you to test it in your own context. The main message is simple: clear provenance helps improve AI-assisted access to public data, although there is no one-size-fits-all approach.
Key content of the guide includes:
🧑🏽🍳 A pilot ‘recipe’ — the team, infrastructure, and timeline required to help you replicate our approach, from aligning on goals to testing and reflection.
📋 6 steps to a data provenance framework for AI agents, ensuring every answer has a clear trail back to the source record.
🤗 Practical recommendations for humans and machines, covering everything from separating facts from interpretation to validating arithmetic calculations.
⏸️ A reflective section acknowledging the limits of the experimentation, including the ‘blank chat’ problem.
🇲🇽 Versión en español
🇧🇷 Versão em português
‘Traceability Is the Answer to AI and Open Government Data’
Open data leaders in Brazil and Uruguay join us for the twenty-first conversation in the 100+ Conversations to Inspire Our New Direction (#OKFN100) project. Otávio Neves (CGU, Brazil) and Gustavo Suarez (AGESIC, Uruguay) discuss the lessons learnt from the pilot, which ensures that reliable AI responses can be traced back to the original public data, and share the challenges of using AI with public data along with their plans for regional data integration.
Abrelatam/Condatos 2026: Follow Our Sessions in Guatemala
The Latin American open data community is gathering this week in Guatemala City for dialogues across multiple sectors to advance transparency, inclusive development, and the strengthening of democracy through data. Open Knowledge is holding sessions with key partners from our AI Learning Labs to share what we’ve learnt and the strategies we’ve implemented in the region.
🔵 5 steps to digitise your physical archive for AI purposes
With Alejandro Flores-Aguilar (AVANCSO), Andrés Vázquez (OKFN), and Sara Fratti (ILDA)
🔵 AI and open data in Latin America
With Andrés Vázquez (OKFN), Gustavo Suarez (AGESIC), and Marcelo de Brito Vidal (CGU)
If you are around, get in touch so we can connect and coordinate further projects.
MozFest 2026 in Barcelona: Learning AI by Doing With Communities
Open Knowledge is sending a delegation to Barcelona Open Tech Week, which includes the 2026 Mozilla Festival. Our sessions will showcase some of our pilot projects and highlight lessons learnt from AI technologies. Our team will also offer critical perspectives on how communities can tackle the overall bleak picture of Big Tech’s enclosure of the digital commons.
Save the date for our sessions:
🔵 Free your data! Using an MCP to let people access your data in new ways
With Kannika Thaimai and Patricio Del Boca
🔵 AI Learning Labs: How Do You Build a Responsible Climate Chatbot?
With Gitanjali Yadav
🔵 Cultivating Public Goods: Joint strategies to weeding out AI exploitation
With Angela Odour Lungati (Ushahidi), Anna Tumadóttir (Creative Commons), Bolaji Ayodeji (DPGA), Franziska Putz (Wikimedia), Lea Gimpel (DPGA), and Renata Ávila (OKFN)
Open Knowledge and GreenPT Partner to Advance Sustainable AI
We are thrilled to announce a new partnership between Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) and GreenPT. Through this collaboration, we aim to opt for sustainable, privacy-first AI tools and put them directly into the hands of our global Network — particularly communities in the Global South who have long faced barriers to accessing AI without surrendering their data to Big Tech. GreenPT is a European AI platform hosted in data centres powered by 100% renewable energy.
Open Technology Research Symposium: Final Agenda Announced
We are happy to announce our final agenda for the Open Technology Research Symposium 2026, which will take place on 26-27 October at the Universitat de Barcelona, in Catalonia, Spain. Under the theme “Shaping the Open Transition”, the Symposium’s agenda will convene practitioners and researchers, bringing together a global network dedicated to open technologies, digital rights, and democratic innovation. The programme is organised in the following blocks:
🔸 Governance
🔸 Open source hardware
🔸 Sustainability and business models
🔸 Behavioural change and adoption
🔸 Open science and research infrastructure
🔸 Public procurement ecosystem
Interview at GovInsider: Why AI Governance Starts with Data Management
For governments, the AI challenge may not be adopting a more advanced tool, but making sure the information across the system is accessible and reliable. OKFN’s CEO, Renata Avila, talked to GovInsider about our recent experiments connecting AI with government open data portals. The key is making the source data truly reliable to help tackle misinformation and increase trust in public institutions.
“If the government can provide that information quickly, accurately and with a clear source, citizens have a reason to return to official channels.”
Country Reports Now Available at the SkyCommons Observatory
In July, we released a baseline study on how Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite internet was rolled out in six countries (Brazil, Ukraine, Fiji, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Nigeria) and scored them on key public-interest principles, including governance and accountability. The dominant company – SpaceX’s Starlink – is so powerful, and the public interest protections so low, that our level of concern across all these countries varies from moderate to high. You can now download papers containing research details for each country – a valuable resource for anyone interested in digital sovereignty.
CKAN 2.12: A Major Release That Changes How You Work With Your Data
CKAN 2.12.0 is here. It is the final release in the 2.x series and the deliberate groundwork for CKAN 3.0 – introducing files as first-class entities, a faster DataStore, richer APIs, scheduled background jobs, and the new opt-in Midnight Blue theme. If you run an older instance, upgrading is the most important thing you can do right now. Here is what changed, and why it matters.
Discover Experts from Around the Globe on Open Knowledge’s Directory
Who are the German-speaking open data experts I could ask for advice on my project?
Our Global Directory is designed precisely to help you sort this type of question. It is a curated list of real people with direct contact details, a valuable resource for collaboration and coordination in the open movement worldwide. You can discover experts from around the globe, grouped into 43 categories related to openness, and in 30+ languages. You can also nominate experts, including yourself.
These are the latest discussions on the Open Knowledge Forum. Have your say!
@Jamaica on Standards & Interoperability ↗
“Bob sent me this Data Foundation piece that was published earlier this summer, and I thought it was worth sharing here as well.”
@kate_sam on CKAN General ↗
“To anyone who missed it, the recording is on YouTube. The Provenance Sandbox: Implementing Verifiable Honesty for ML Datasets with CKAN and OOI.”
@patricio.delboca on Open Data Editor ↗
“Thanks for keeping the conversation going! In the last couple of days we have reviewed, tested and released a new version of Open Data Editor that uses Apertus model. 🙂”
Save the dates!
Open Tech Week 2026
Barcelona
26—30 October
Barcelona prepares to become the world’s capital of open source and host the second edition of Open Tech Week (OTW), an international gathering dedicated to open technologies, digital rights and democratic innovation, bringing together participants from civil society, public administrations, academia and the technology sector.
Mozilla Festival 2026
Barcelona
28–30 October
MozFest is three days of bold conversations, hands-on building, and ideas worth traveling for. This year, they are partnering with the City of Barcelona and taking part in Open Tech Week – a city-wide celebration of the people shaping a better digital world.
Open Technology Research Symposium
Barcelona
26–27 October
This global, multidisciplinary research symposium brings academics and practitioners together to advance understanding of the role of open technologies in the modern world and produces policy-relevant research that helps decision-makers drive impact. Entry is free of charge.
Abrelatam Condatos 2026
Guatemala City
7–9 October
Abrelatam is at the heart of the conversation on open data in Latin America and the Caribbean, bringing together governments, academia, the private sector and civil society to tackle local and global challenges. This event facilitates collaboration and dialogue across multiple sectors to advance transparency, inclusive development and the strengthening of democracy through data.
Internet Governance Forum 2026
Nairobi
14–18 December
The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is a global multistakeholder platform that facilitates discussions on public policy issues pertaining to Internet governance. The IGF was one of the most important outcomes of the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) that mandated the United Nations Secretary-General to formally convene the Forum.
Geneva AI Summit 2027
Switzerland
21—22 June, 2027
The Geneva AI Summit 2027 unites two strategic priorities: AI as a driver of prosperity and progress for all and fostering trustworthy, responsible and safe use of AI. Innovation and trust reinforce each other, responsible AI requires transparency and broad accessibility. Together, these priorities position Switzerland as both a global AI leader and a constructive bridge-builder in shaping AI’s future.
About us.
Open knowledge is any content, information or data that people are free to use, re-use and redistribute — without any legal, technological or social restriction.
The Open Knowledge Foundation’s mission is to create a fair, sustainable and open digital future, advancing open knowledge as a design principle beyond just data. We do it by guiding and supporting the creation of digital infrastructure, developing policies and methodologies, harnessing communities and advocating for literacies and standards in a sustainable, ethical and agile manner.
