Tampere, Finland (public domain) This piece is written by Jaakko Korhonen and Joonas Pesonen of Open Knowledge Finland At the end of October a team using OpenSpending tools held a pitch for high-ranking Finnish Government officials in “Hack the Budget 2016,” a competition organised by Open Knowledge Finland (OKFFI) and the Finnish Ministry of Finance. […]
Berlin, November 21, 2016 – Today, the beta version of OpenBudgets is officially released to the public. The Horizon 2020-funded project seeks to advance transparency and accountability in the fiscal domain by providing journalists, CSOs, NGOs, citizens and public administrations with state-of-the-art tools needed to effectively process and analyze financial data. For the beta version, […]
The free and open source software (FOSS) enthusiasts just celebrated the Software Freedom Day (SFD) on September 17 all across the world. This year, a small group of six of us gathered to celebrate SFD in the Indian city of Bengaluru. The group consisted of open source contributors from communities such as Mozilla, Wikimedia, Mediawiki, […]
For the last 15 months the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany has been working on 2030Watch, a prototype to monitor progress towards the sustainable development goals (SDGs) from an independent, civil society-led perspective. There’s a detailed blog post on why such independent monitoring is necessary at our blog. To give a quick example, the UN Commission agreed to […]
This piece is the final installment of a three-part series of posts from MyData 2016 – an international conference that focused on human-centric personal information management. The conference was co-hosted by the Open Knowledge Finland chapter of the Open Knowledge Network. Part 1 looked at what personal data has to do with open data and […]
This blog post is part of our summer series featuring chapter updates from across the Open Knowledge Network and was written by the team of Open Knowledge Finland. Summer is a great time in Finland. It’s so sunny that everyone seems to be on holiday! However, there was no time for extended holidays at Open […]
This month sees the launch of two new Chapters at the Open Knowledge Network, a chapter for Japan and a chapter for Sweden. Chapters are the Open Knowledge Network’s most developed form, which have legal independence from the organisation and are affiliated by a Memorandum of Understanding. For a full list of our current chapters, […]
This blog post is part of our summer series featuring chapter updates from across the Open Knowledge Network and was written by the team of Open Knowledge Ireland. What is OK Ireland and what do we do? Open Knowledge Ireland is a team of 9 volunteers who envision an information age where everyone, not just […]
This blog post is part of our summer series featuring updates from chapters across the Open Knowledge Network and was written by the team of Open Knowledge Greece. Open Knowledge Greece consists of a dynamic team of community members who are interested in open data, linked data technologies, and coding and who do their best […]
This blog post is part of our summer series featuring updates from chapters across the Open Knowledge Network and was written by the team of Open Knowledge Austria. The last two months have been very vibrant within Open Knowledge Austria. We co-organized the monthly Vienna Open Data Meetup, but no other public appearances, because we […]
This piece is part of a series of posts from MyData 2016 – an international conference that focuses on human centric personal information management. The conference is co-hosted by the Open Knowledge Finland chapter of the Open Knowledge International Network. Song lyrics: Pharrell Williams “Freedom”; Image Pixabay CC0 Indeed, the theme of MyData so far is […]
This piece is part of a series of posts from MyData 2016 – an international conference that focuses on human centric personal information management. The conference is co-hosted by the Open Knowledge Finland chapter of the Open Knowledge International Network. What does personal data have to do with open data? We usually preach NOT to open […]
The first half of 2016 was a very busy one for the Open Knowledge Swiss chapter, Opendata.ch. Just between April to June the chapter had 3 Hackathons, 15 talks, 3 meetups and 10 workshops. In this blog post we highlight some of these activities to update the Open Knowledge Community about our chapter’s work. […]
Earlier this year, Open Knowledge International announced a joint-initiative with the Cadasta Foundation to explore property rights data with the ultimate goal of defining the land ownership dataset for the Global Open Data Index. Lindsay Ferris from the Cadasta team shares more on how you can get involved on issues related to open data in land […]
This blog post is part of our summer chapters updates and was written by the team of OK Brazil. Brazil is not only about the Olympics. A lot has been going on in the Brazilian chapter of the Open Knowledge Network as well. Here we highlight the significant chapter developments, including some new faces and some […]
This is an opinion piece by an Open Knowledge network member. You can also publish your opinion on the blog by sending us an email to blog@okfn.org First, let me quickly tell you what kind of an organisation is ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), for I feel that albeit its burgeoning global importance, most people […]
A few weeks ago I sat down for a virtual interview with Molly Schwartz from Open Knowledge Finland about my thoughts on open data and mydata and why I am so excited about the MyData 2016 conference. The three-day conference is taking place from August 31 to September 2 in Helsinki and is being organized by Open […]
With only one full-time employee, the Belgian Open Knowledge ship is only a small one to sail. Nonetheless, Pieter-Jan Pauwels has proven to be a worthy captain. The rest of the crew consists of a bunch of student positions, interns, volunteers and of course, the Open Knowledge Belgium board. Even though Open Knowledge Belgium is […]
The most important thing for the Network team at Open Knowledge International is the community we build around data. The tools we build to achieve this are crucial as well since they allow people to make even more and better plans and projects. To continue doing this, we are restructuring a bunch of technological tools […]
This blog post was written by Olga Kalatzi from OK Greece On the 5th of July in Athens, the open dialogue on Greece’s Third National Action Plan to the Open Government Partnership commenced where Open Knowledge Greece presented its 3 commitments for the third action plan. The commitments of OK Greece included School of Data for […]
We all know the feeling of the end of a conference, where after long days full of content, you leave with more unanswered questions. Conferences are a great place for networking, learning different topics and sharing achievements (and sometimes even failures), but in their nature, they are organised in a way that is less participatory […]
The Open Government Partnership (OGP) is premised on the notion that sharing success stories can encourage further experimentation and reform. This is certainly true with parliaments, where the Legislative Openness Working Group (LOWG) has repeatedly witnessed the value of sharing information and experience. To ensure that good practice is effectively captured and shared, the […]
The involvement and collaboration of governmental bodies, citizens and other stakeholders in order to promote open data and open government initiatives were one of the main achievements of the event “Open Government: Participate, Propose and Be Heard! Conformation of the Third National Action Plan 2016-2018.” The event was co-organized by the Ministry of Interior and Administrative […]
this post was written by the OK Finland team What is MyData? MyData is both an alternative vision and guiding technical principles for how we, as individuals, can have more control over the data trails we leave behind us in our everyday actions. The core idea is that we, you and I, should have an […]
This post was written by our friends at Open State Foundation in the Netherlands. Let’s face it. When it comes to relevant open data and transparency in European decision-making, we have a lot to do. Despite growing open data portals, and aggregating European data portal, if you want to make sense of European decision-making and […]
For the first time in history, we can hack from inside the Council of the European Union building! Join us at #Diplohack in Brussels in the Council of the European Union on the 29-30 of April. We invite everyone to take part, whether you’re a diplomat, developer, designer, citizen, student, journalist or activist. We will connect different […]
A month ago, we updated you about our plans for the Open Knowledge Network in 2016. One of the firsts steps this year will be to update our network guidelines. For us, guidelines are important because they help us to define our mutual causes and help us strive to achieve our goal. It also help […]
2015 was a great year for Open Knowledge, full of opportunities and challenges. We started many exciting new projects such as Open Trials, Budgets EU and the Route to PA, we had personnel changes (and a new CEO, Pavel Richter), and also we’ve refined our name to Open Knowledge International. In addition, we developed a […]
An Ad Hoc Introduction to Argentine Affairs This post was written by Andres Snitcofsky an open government / data activist in Argentina. See Andres Medium account for more posts – https://medium.com/@rusosnith Since a new government took office in Argentina, a party alliance called #Cambiemos (Let’s Change), a lot of things have changed. Less than one month has […]
The Local Open Data Index Nepal 2015 is a crowdsourced survey that examines the availability of Open Data at city level. The survey was conducted for the second time in Nepal by Open Knowledge Nepal. See our previous post that announced the local index here. Background For the decentralization of power from central authority to […]
Good things can often go unnoticed, especially if they’re not immediately visible. Last month the government of Sweden, through Vinnova, released a revamped version of their open data portal, Öppnadata.se. The portal still runs on CKAN, the open data management system. It even has the same visual feeling but the principles behind the portal are […]
On 2015’s Document Freedom Day, Open Knowledge Nepal organized a seminar on Open Standards at CLASS Nepal at Maitighar, Kathmandu. We intended to pitch openness to a new audience in Nepal and help them learn documentation skills. As we could not hope to teach documentation and spreadsheets in less than a day, we utilized the […]
As part of Open Education Week #openeducationwk activities we are publishing a post on how Open Knowledge Russia have been experimenting with data expeditions. This a follow up post to one that appeared on the Open Education Working Group Website which gave an overview of Open Education projects in Russia. The authors of this post […]
This is a cross-post from the brand new Open Knowledge Pakistan Local Group blog. To learn more about (and get in touch with) the new community in Pakistan, go here. Pakistan is a small country with a high population density. Within 796,096 square kilometres of its territory, Pakistan has a population of over 180 million […]
On International Open Data Day (21 Feb 2015) Australia’s Regional Open Data Census launched. This is the story of the trials and tribulations in launching the census. Getting Started Like many open data initiatives come to realise, after filling up a portal with lots of open data, there is a need for quality as well […]
This blog post is cross-posted from the Open Knowledge India blog and the Open Steps blog. It is written by Open Knowledge Ambassador Subhajit Ganguly, who is a physicist and an active member of various open data, open science and Open Access movements. Open Knowledge India, with support from the National Council of Education Bengal […]
It’s once again time for us to proudly announce the establishment of a new batch of Open Knowledge Local Groups, founded by community leaders in Macedonia, Pakistan, Portugal and Ukraine, which we hereby welcome warmly into the ever-growing family of Local Groups. This brings the total number of Local Groups and Chapters up to a […]
This is a guest blog post by Pieter-Jan Pauwels from Open Knowledge Belgium. This past weekend has been buzzing with activities around the world during #OpenDataDay. In Belgium however they saved their strength for this week in order to host the #openbelgium15 conference, featuring industry examples, community workshops and much more. Over 180 people are […]
As some might remember, last year we ran a very popular blog post series called Global Community Stories, which highlighted activities in the ever-broadening Local Groups global community. Towards the latter half of the year lots of other projects demanded time and the series came to an unintended halt. With the turn of the year, […]
This is a cross-post from the Open Knowledge Switzerland blog, see the original here. It has been a big year for us in Switzerland. An openness culture spreading among civil administration, NGOs, SMEs, backed by the efforts of makers, supporters and activists throughout the country, has seen the projects initiated over the past three years […]
Open Knowledge Belgium to host The Second Edition of Open Belgium in Namur on Feb 23rd, 2015! Register Today! On 23 February, Open Knowledge Belgium is hosting the second edition of Open Belgium, an event expected to attract over 200 people, coming together to learn and discuss the growing open knowledge movement in Belgium. This […]
This is a guest post by Ivan Begtin, Ambassador for Open Knowledge in Russia and co-founder of the Russian Local Group. Dear friends, the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015 have been marked by an event, which is terrific for all those who are interested in working with open data, participating in challenges […]
One of the best opportunities that being part of a community offers is the chance to collaborate and make things happen together – and when we want this to happen in sync, what’s better than convening an (in person or online) event? Just before the end of the year, let’s collect a few highlights from […]
This is a guest post, originally published in French on the Open Knowledge Foundation France blog Nowadays, being able to place an address on a map is an essential information. In France, where addresses were still unavailable for reuse, the OpenStreetMap community decided to create its own National Address Database available as open data. The […]
Following last week’s Open Access Week blog series, we continue our celebration of community efforts in this field. Today we give the microphone to Dr. Salua Nassabay from Open Knowledge Ireland in a great account from Ireland, originally posted on the Open Knowledge Ireland blog. In Ireland, awareness of OA has increased within the research […]
This post is part of our Open Access Week blog series to highlight great work in Open Access communities around the world. It is written by Celya Gruson-Daniel from Open Knowledge France and reports from “Open Access Xsprint”, a creative workshop held on October 20 in the biohackerspace La Paillasse in Paris – as announced […]
This post is part of our Open Access Week blog series to highlight great work in Open Access communities around the world. It is written by Miguel Said from Open Knowledge Brazil and is a translated version of the original that can be found the Brazilian Open Science Working Group's blog. Nature Publishing Group reported […]
This post is part of our Open Access Week blog series to highlight great work in Open Access communities around the world. Open Access Week was celebrated for the first time in Nepal for the opening 2 days: October 20, 21. The event, which was led by newly founded Open Access Nepal, and supported by […]
We are now a little over a year into the Local Groups scheme that was launched in early 2013. Since then we have been receiving hundreds of applications from great community members wanting to start Local Groups in their countries and become Ambassadors and community leaders. From this great body of amazing talent, Local Groups […]
We’re hosting a September Community Call. Join us to discuss a number of community programming ideas and help make a plan. All welcome. (Amazing drawing by Artepilpilean) What: September Community Summit On Air Date: Wednesday, September 10th Your Local time: 8:00 – 9:00 EDT, 13:00 – 14:00 BST, 14:00 – 15:00 CEST (Also see worldtimebuddy.com) […]
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