Open Data Day is an annual celebration of open data all over the world facilitated by the Open Knowledge Foundation. Each year, groups from around the world create local events on the day where they will use open data in their communities. It is an opportunity to show the benefits of open data and encourage the adoption of open data policies in government, business and civil society.

With Open Data Day 2021 less than four months away, we asked the Open Data community to tell us how you think we can better support Open Data Day.

It’s not too late to have your say. Just visit the survey here.  

The responses we had were very encouraging. We received lots of feedback – both positive and negative. And many of you offered to help with Open Data Day 2021. Thank you so much!

We’ve gone through all the feedback and…

Here is a summary of what we learned

You told us that Open Data Day 2021 will be better if we …

• present all the events together in a searchable directory, to show the amazing scale and variety of Open Data Day events
• focus less on the geographic location of the events because some events are online and can be attended by anyone with an internet connection
• give more mini-grants to more Open Data Day events 
• confirm who has won the mini-grants at an earlier date – to help with event planning
• focus on one data track – not four. Recommendations included climate change data, disaster risk management data, gender data, election data and Covid 19 data
• give support, advice and opportunities for Covid Safe events and activities 
• get better press coverage of Open Data Day events, and better connections with data journalists 
• publish reports on Open Data Day events on the Open Data Day website, with more photos and videos
• improve the mini-grant methodology to increase the measurable impact of Open Data Day mini-grants 
• reduce bank changes by using innovative money transfer systems 
• helped funding partners create better connections with event organisers and attendees

Here at Open Knowledge Foundation we will spend the next few weeks digesting all these great ideas and working out how best to respond to make sure Open Data Day 2021 is better than ever. Thanks again to everyone who already responded to our survey!