We at the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) are excited to announce the list of organisations that have been awarded mini-grants to help them host Open Data Day (ODD) events and activities across the world.
Our team received a total of 130 applications and was greatly impressed by the quality of the event proposals. In 2025, we are running two separate calls to accommodate the diverse interests in our community. The first call was for the general community, and the second was specifically for activities happening in French-speaking countries in Africa.
Check out the results below:
General Mini-Grant Winners
This call was open to any practices and disciplines carried out by open data communities around the world – such as hackathons, tool demos, artificial intelligence, climate emergency, digital strategies, open government, open mapping, citizen participation, automation, monitoring, etc.
A total of 22 events will receive a grant amount of USD 300 each, thanks to the sponsorship of the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) and Datopian.
Here are the winning proposals by country, in alphabetical order:
“Open Data intro + Bring your own Data workshop!” – The event hopes to increase awareness of Open Data and inspire researchers to open up their data, which is related to climate change and biodiversity, governmental data, law and management.
“Mapping Resilience: Harnessing Open Data for Flood Preparedness in Sunamganj” – To improve the accuracy and completeness of Sunamganj’s road network data in OpenStreetMap, enhancing disaster preparedness and community resilience through collaborative mapping.
“Komenda Shoreline Mapping Project- A YouthMappers Open Data Initiative” – To establish a collaborative open data platform for continuous monitoring of shoreline changes in Komenda that informs sustainable coastal management and resilience strategies.
“Open Climate Education” – To introduce Girls in Senior High Schools to Open Ecosystem and Climate Literacy.
Bandung Mapper
🇮🇩 Indonesia
📍 Bandung
“Coastal Resilience through Mangrove Rehabilitation: Geospatial Data to Action” – The main goal is to analyse coastal vulnerability and prioritise mangrove rehabilitation sites using geospatial data, followed by field validation and community engagement.
“Pari Island Coral Watch: Collaborating for Climate Justice” – Through citizen science and new coral ecosystem data in Pari small island, we monitor and record coral damage that occurs and foster a spirit of climate justice through storytelling from childhood.
“GeoSkills Training for Climate Action: Empowering Youth with Spatial Data Tools” – To inspire and transform university students from being merely contributors to open data, especially on OpenStreetMap, into active beneficiaries and end users of open data. By equipping them with the skills to leverage open spatial data, we aim to empower them to tackle climate change, the global and local challenge and contribute to poverty reduction and sustainable development.
“Open Data and new technologies to address the polycrisis” – Bringing together students, professors and specialists interested in sharing time addressing the polycrisis from a big data perspective.
“Green Mapping Meetup: Climate Café and Open Data for Sustainability” – Community gathering where people share vegan food, discuss climate solutions, and use open data to map eco-friendly businesses—empowering action to reduce CO₂ emissions and promote sustainable consumption & production.
“Harnessing Opportunities to address Polycrisis through community Engagement (HOPE)” – Raising awareness among marginalised and indigenous communities about the disproportionate impacts of the polycrisis by leveraging open data.
“Tracking Resilience of Indigenous Bodies for Environmental Sustainability (TRIBES)” – Harness open data and participatory research in tracking the resilience of indigenous communities facing climate-driven displacement and conflict, ensuring their voices, knowledge systems, and rights are central in shaping sustainable solutions.
“Empowering Journalists to Leverage Open Data for Climate and Agricultural Reporting” – To equip rural journalists in Imo State Nigeria to use open data for impactful climate change and agriculture reporting, to drive awareness and solutions.
“Leveraging Open Data for Child Advocacy in a Polycrisis Context: The Case of Owerri Municipal Local Government Area of Imo State” – The main goal is to use open data to advocate for child-friendly policies in Owerri Municipal LGA, addressing polycrisis challenges like insecurity and unrest impacting children’s well-being.
“Mapping Resilience – Using QGIS to Analyze La Niña and El Niño Impacts in the Philippines” – To utilize QGIS for spatial analysis and visualization of La Niña and El Niño events in the Philippines, enabling better disaster preparedness and response through data-driven decision-making.
“Wiki She Event Rwanda” – It is aimed at promoting gender equity and increasing the representation of women through creation and improvement articles related to the women in Rwanda.
“Somalia Open Data Day 2025: Unlocking Transparency” – To advocate for the meaningful and effective implementation of open data initiatives by the Somali government to enhance transparency, accountability, and good governance, combat corruption, and foster collaborative dialogue among key stakeholders for evidence-based policymaking, improved service delivery, and strengthened democratic processes in Somalia.
“Open Data for Enhancing Food Security” – The event will target promoting the use of open data for enhancing food security in Tanzania.
“SMCoSE GeoChallenge 2025: MapRoulette Edition” – Enhancing accessibility and disaster resilience in Tanzania by fixing roads on OpenStreetMap with MapRoulette to improve health and emergency response.
“Open Data for Education: Bridging Gaps and Building Futures” – The goal of the event is to empower citizens, educators, policymakers, and students to use open data as a tool to address educational challenges and improve learning outcomes in their communities.
“Open Data for Resilient Dodoma” – To empower communities, researchers, and policymakers in Dodoma to use open data and geospatial technology to tackle interconnected challenges in urban development, climate resilience, and governance.
“Floods, Smog, Wildfires: Decoding Thailand’s Endless Disaster with Data” – To highlight the failures in disaster management’s use of information and advocate for better data access, enabling stakeholders to support prevention, crisis response, and recovery.
“Open Data for Peace and Development” – Participants understanding of the role and power of open data in creating peace and sustainable development through accessing the open land data as well as open land data policies in Uganda.
Francophone Africa Mini-Grant Winners
This call was specifically seeking to promote events happening in French-speaking countries in Africa.
A total of 14 events will receive a grant amount of USD 300 each, thanks to the sponsorship of the Communauté d’Afrique Francophone des Données Ouvertes (CAFDO).
Here are the winning proposals by country, in alphabetical order:
“Open Geospatial Data to Fight Polycrisis in West Africa” – The main objective of this event is to promote the use of open geographic data to strengthen resilience and decision-making in the face of crises in West Africa, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“Open data for sustainable agriculture” – Raising awareness and training farmers and young agricultural entrepreneurs in the use of open data to improve their production and optimise the management of natural resources.
“Wikidata for development: Workshop on contributing to and making use of open data in Cameroon” – To strengthen the skills of contributors and local players in contributing to and making use of open data on Wikidata for the development of Cameroon.
“Open Data and governance of mining resources in East Kasai: Transparency and citizen responsibility” – The event aims to train citizens and local stakeholders in the analysis and exploitation of open data on mining to strengthen transparency, accountability and monitoring of mining revenues in East Kasai.
“Hackaton: Impacts of floods and landslides on the social life of local communities” – Assessing and mapping the impacts of floods and landslides.
“Building the capacity of local developers in open data and air quality monitoring in Kinshasa” – The main aim of our Open Data Day event is to build the capacity of local developers to exploit open data for air quality monitoring in Kinshasa.
“DataResilience” – Promoting a deeper understanding and strategic adoption of open data by Senghor University students to anticipate, prevent and manage polycrisis in Africa.
“Open data and health: a lever for empowering young people in Guinea” – To raise awareness and train young people in the use of open data to improve access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information and combat female genital mutilation (FGM) in Guinea.
‘Open Data Day 2025 in Côte d’Ivoire’ – Training 10 Ivorians in the use of open data to map illegal gold-panning sites in Ivory Coast, through a day of awareness-raising and content production on Wikidata and OpenStreetMap, to increase transparency and promote sustainable resource management.
“Knowledge sharing on the practice of open science in Ivory Coast” – Define an action plan and timetable to enable the sharing of open science practices, products, tools, or spaces, to improve the service to users.
“Mastering Open Data: from Collection to Analysis with Open Source Tools” – To raise awareness and mobilise local stakeholders around the Sustainable Development Goals in order to promote concrete actions for inclusive and sustainable development.
“The use of GIS in determining flood protection zones and evacuation routes” – We are aiming to empower youth toward the use of GIS knowledge, creating awareness and promote the use of open data for the community impact. Through the event we will improve the preparedness and response capabilities to floods in the Jangwani basin area, as the participants will be equiped on GIS knowledge to determine flood protection zones and evacuation routes.
“Contribution of OpenData in the sustainable peace in Togo” – How open data can help in the fight against insecurity and the risks of violent extremism while promoting peace and social justice in Togo.
“Tdev Open Data Day” – To showcase innovative projects using Togo’s open data platform, explore the integration of AI and open data, and foster dialogue on their impact on innovation, transparency and policy making.
How the selection process works
The selection of mini-grants follows a points system based on four criteria:
- Novelty/creativity of the proposal
- Community aspect: to what extent the proposal promotes community involvement (especially local communities)
- Achievability of the activity and level of commitment of the organisers when writing the proposal
- Diversity in terms of geography, gender, and type of activities
- Alignment with Open Data Day 2025 thematic focus
In the first phase, the proposals are evaluated blindly: each member of the selection committee assigns a score for each criterion without knowing the authors of the projects. A shortlist is then drawn up, which is discussed at a committee meeting when the authorship is finally revealed. The committee then tries to balance the proposals in terms of geographical distribution, gender, type of activity, etc.
This year, the selection committees were formed by the following people:
General Call
- Daniela Popova (Datopian)
- Julieta Millán (Open Knowledge Network)
- Lucas Pretti (Open Knowledge Foundation)
- Tosan Okome (Open Data Day Community)
Francophone Africa Call
- Constance Kabore (CAFDO)
- Lucas Pretti (Open Knowledge Foundation)
- Salimata Sawadogo (CAFDO)
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: this year between March 1st and 7th. In 2024, a total of 287 events happened all over the world, in 60 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.
