Open Data Day Guyana – Bringing Open Street Map to the classroom

This blog post was written by Vijay Datadin from the GIS collective Open Data is a new and still not very well understood concept in Guyana, as is probably the case in other countries as well. The GIS Collective, a group of volunteers, each highly skilled and experienced in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), know the value […]

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PublicBodies Datathon: Collecting the information of Nepal Government diverse PublicBodies

Once again, a bunch of open philosophy believers and lovers gathered for the fourth annual celebration of International Open Data Day 2016 in Nepal. This year Open Data Day was organized in three different places of Nepal and was lead by different communities. Open Knowledge Nepal in collaboration with FOSS Nepal Community and CSIT Association […]

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Open Data Day Santiago: “Bringing an “open” philosophy to the people”

This post was written by Manuel Barros Open Government Partnership coordinator at Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente. Read the full blog in Spanish on the ILDA site. One of the pillars at Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente has been to strengthen democracy through the creative use of information technologies. Inevitably, that mission has always been strongly linked to the […]

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#OpenDataDay 16 in Quito, connecting people and data-driven ideas

This post was written by Julio López P – 2015 School of Data Fellow. Julio is currentl working on energy information management and capacity building projects in Latin America and the Caribbean. See post in Spanish on ILDA’s (Iniciativa Latinoamericana por los Datos Abiertos) blog In 2016, the Quito open data community  joined the worldwide celebrations for Open […]

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New Report: “Changing What Counts: How Can Citizen-Generated and Civil Society Data Be Used as an Advocacy Tool to Change Official Data Collection?”

Following on from our discussion paper on “Democratising the Data Revolution”, today we’re pleased to announce the release of a new report titled “Changing What Counts: How Can Citizen-Generated and Civil Society Data Be Used as an Advocacy Tool to Change Official Data Collection?”. Undertaken as a collaboration between Open Knowledge and the CIVICUS DataShift, […]

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New Initiative: Open Data for Tax Justice #OD4TJ

Every year countries lose billions of dollars to tax avoidance, tax evasion and more generally to illicit financial flows. According to a recent IMF estimate around $700 billion of tax revenues is lost each year due to profit-shifting. In developing countries the loss is estimated to be around $200 billion, which as a share of […]

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Sloan Foundation Funds Frictionless Data Tooling and Engagement at Open Knowledge

We are excited to announce that Open Knowledge International has received $700,000 in funding from The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation over two years to work on a broad range of activities to enable better research and more effective civic tech through our Frictionless Data initiative. The funding will target standards work, tooling, and infrastructure around […]

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Rufus Pollock: I am now Non-Executive at Open Knowledge International

Today, I am pleased to announce the completion of my move to a non-executive role at Open Knowledge International. When Pavel Richter took over as CEO last year, my plan was to move to the role of President and transition to a non-executive position on a timeline that allowed me to support Pavel as he […]

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Think big, start small, move fast

How the York Museums Trust started opening up its collection – OpenGLAM Case study More and more libraries, museums and other cultural institutions publish their collections online, often allowing users to reuse the material for research or creative purpose by licensing it openly. For institutions that start planning such a step, it may seem daunting […]

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ILDA to join Open Data Day Mini grants!

This post was written by Fabrizio Scrollini We are happy to announce that The Latin American Open Data initiative (ILDA) is joining the global efforts to enrich Open Data Day mini aims to promote and support the engagement of the Latin American community on Open Data Day. Our support will go to Latin American individuals and […]

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New Network Guidelines – Tell Us What You Think!

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 […]

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Introducing Viderum

Ten years ago, Rufus started CKAN as an “apt-get for data” in order to enable governments and corporations to provide their data as truly open data. Today, CKAN is used by countless open data publishers around the globe and has become the de facto standard. With CKAN as the technical foundation, Open Knowledge has offered […]

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Google Funds Frictionless Data Initiative at Open Knowledge

We are delighted to announce that Open Knowledge has received funding from Google to work on tool integration for Data Packages as part of our broader work on Frictionless Data to support the open data community.   What are Data Packages? The funding will support a growing set of tooling around Data Packages.  Data Packages […]

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Open Data Day Mini Grants: back for 2016!

This year, on Saturday, the 5th of March, the fourth annual Open Data Day will take place. For us in Open Knowledge, Open Data Day is one of our favourite initiatives. This is a grassroot event that has no particular organisation behind it, and it is able to bring together people from all over the world […]

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Open Knowledge Network and Community updates – First steps of 2016

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 […]

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The Open Data Utopia of the Pampas

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 […]

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Open Data goes local in Nepal: Findings of Nepal Open Data Index 2015

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 […]

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Unlocking Election Results Data: Signs of Progress but Challenges Still Remain

This blog post was written by the NDI election team -Michael McNulty and Benjamin Mindes How “open” are election results data around the world? Answering that question just became much easier. For the first time, the Global Open Data Index 2015 assessed election results data based on whether the results are made available at the […]

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Africa Open Data Collaboration Fund Winners Announced

Open Knowledge International and the Open Data for Development program are pleased to announce the seven projects that have been shortlisted to receive support from the Africa Open Data Collaboration Fund (AODC Fund)*. The AODC Fund is a partnership with the organisers of the First Africa Open Data Conference and it was designed to provide […]

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Global Open Data Index 2015 – Taiwan Insight

** This insight was written by TH Schee OK Taiwan ambassador ** Taiwan has surprisingly topped the Global Open Data Index 2015, and it’s not without questions as how this could be have been achieved without further examination. Even though Taiwan has been very active and recognised as one of the hotspot of open data, […]

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Forbes Philippines & BlogWatch win best story award as Data Journalism PH wraps up

At the end of November, Open Knowledge, School of Data and the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) wrapped-up their six-month data journalism training for media organisations in the Philippines, the first of its kind. Over 100 journalists and civil servants gathered at the Cocoon Hotel in Quezon City to see the twelve participating media […]

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The State of Open Data in Southeast Asia

*** This blog post was written by Hazwany Jamaluddin from Sinar Project in Malaysia *** There are few countries in Southeast Asia region – Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, Lao PDR, Singapore, East Timor and Malaysia – that are falling behind in the global open data movement, while others – Indonesia and Philippines – are advancing as […]

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Global Open Data Index – Kosovo Insight

his post was written by Arianit Dobroshi Kosovo is ranked 35th in the 2015 Open Knowledge Global Open Data Index , down from 31st place in last year’s measurement and marked as 43% open. In South East Europe, Albania ranked 37th and Macedonia, 69th. Others, such as Serbia and Bosnia, have not been scored since they […]

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Global Open Data Index 2015 – Rwanda insight

This post was written by Stephen Abbott Pugh from Code for Africa Rwanda’s jump in the Global Open Data index rankings from 74th to 44th comes at a time when the open data conversation is gathering pace in the country. As Rwanda’s cabinet prepares to debate the draft national open data policy in early 2016, […]

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Global Open Data Index 2015 – Uruguay Insight

This post was written by Daniel Carranza from DataUY Uruguay has made headlines in the news lately. Mostly due to our unconventional former president José “Pepe” Mujica, and initiatives such as legalized abortion, regulated marijuana market and egalitarian marriage. It’s not the first time that our small country brings up innovative ideas ,as with divorce […]

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Global Open Data Index 2015 – United Kingdom Insight

This post was written by Owen Boswarva For a third year running the United Kingdom has come out at or near the top of the Global Open Data Index. Unlike many of the countries that did well in previous years, the UK’s overall standing has not been greatly affected by the addition of five new […]

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The Global Open Data Index 2015 is live – what is your country status?

We are excited to announce that we have published the third annual Global Open Data Index. This year’s Index showed impressive gains from non-OECD countries with Taiwan topping the Index and Colombia and Uruguay breaking into the top ten at four and seven respectively. Overall, the Index evaluated 122 places and 1586 datasets and determined […]

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Government contracts: Still a long way from open

This blog post was written by Georg Neumann from Open Contracting Global Open Data Index: State of disclosure and data of government contracts For the first time ever, the Global Open Data Index is assessing open data on tenders and awards in this year’s index. This is crucial information. Government deals with companies amount to […]

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Calling all Project Assistants: we need you!

The mission of Open Knowledge International is to open up all essential public interest information and see it utilized to create insight that drives change. To this end we work to create a global movement for open knowledge, supporting a network of leaders and local groups around the world; we facilitate coordination and knowledge sharing […]

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Treasures from the Public Domain in New Essays Book

Open Knowledge project The Public Domain Review launches its second book of selected essays, featuring sea serpents, pirates, vampires, and more.

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Announcement – Open Definition 2.1

Today Open Knowledge and the Open Definition Advisory Council are pleased to announce the release of version 2.1 of the Open Definition. The definition “sets out principles that define openness in relation to data and content” and continues to play a key role in supporting the growing open ecosystem. The Open Definition was first published […]

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Join the School of Data team: Technical Trainer wanted

Background The mission of Open Knowledge International is to open up all essential public interest information and see it utilized to create insight that drives change. To this end we work to create a global movement for open knowledge, supporting a network of leaders and local groups around the world; we facilitate coordination and knowledge […]

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Datawijs, bridge between young people and open data

This post is by Lara Deraes and was crossposted from the Open Knowledge Belgium blog. Open data is gaining more importance these days. Yet, a lot of young people don’t know what open data is, or how they can benefit from it. That’s where Datawijs comes in. It’s an interactive video series, that introduces teenagers […]

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Introducing Portfolios, hiring Managers

The mission of Open Knowledge International is to open up all essential public interest information and see it utilized to create insight that drives change. To this end we work to create a global movement for open knowledge, supporting a network of leaders and local groups around the world; we facilitate coordination and knowledge sharing […]

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Global Open Data Index

Your input needed: final review of 2015 Global Open Data Index

We’re now in the final stretch for the 2015 Global Open Data Index, and will be publishing the results in the very near future! As a community driven measurement tool, this year we have incorporated feedback we’ve received over the past several years to make the Index more useful as an instrument for civil society […]

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Seeking a Chief Operating Officer

The mission of Open Knowledge International is to open up all essential public interest information and see it utilized to create insight that drives change. To this end we work to create a global movement for open knowledge, supporting a network of leaders and local groups around the world; we facilitate coordination and knowledge sharing […]

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6 lessons from sharing humanitarian data

Cross-posted from scraperwiki.com This post is a write-up of the talk I gave at Strata London in May 2015 called “Sharing humanitarian data at the United Nations”. You can find the slides on that page. The Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX) is an unusual data hub. It’s made by the UN, and is successfully used by […]

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Open: A Short Film about Open Government, Open Data and Open Source

This is a guest post from Richard Pietro the writer and director of Open. If you’re reading this, you’re likely familiar with the terms Open Government, Open Data, and Open Source. You probably understand how civic engagement is being radically transformed through these movements. Therein lays the challenge: How can we reach everyone else? The […]

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Open Knowledge Founder Rufus Pollock, Ashoka Fellow

Open Knowledge Founder Rufus Pollock was recently recognized as Ashoka UK’s fellow of the month. This brief video highlights his thoughts on open knowledge, and his vision for an information age grounded in openness, collaboration, sharing, and distributed power. Video produced and provided by Ashoka UK Ashoka builds networks of social innovators and selects high-impact […]

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Event Guide, 2015 Open Data Index

Getting together at a public event can be a fun way to contribute to the 2015 Global Open Data Index. It can also be a great way to engage and organize people locally around open data. Here are some guidelines and tips for hosting an event in support of the 2015 Index and getting the […]

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New Report: “Open Budget Data: Mapping the Landscape”

We’re pleased to announce a new report, “Open Budget Data: Mapping the Landscape” undertaken as a collaboration between Open Knowledge, the Global Initiative for Financial Transparency and the Digital Methods Initiative at the University of Amsterdam. The report offers an unprecedented empirical mapping and analysis of the emerging issue of open budget data, which has […]

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Global Open Data Index 2015 is open for submissions

The Global Open Data Index measures and benchmarks the openness of government data around the world, and then presents this information in a way that is easy to understand and easy to use. Each year the open data community and Open Knowledge produces an annual ranking of countries, peer reviewed by our network of local […]

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The 2015 Global Open Data Index is around the corner – these are the new datasets we are adding to it!

After a two months, 82 ideas for datasets, 386 voters, thirteen civil society organisation consultations and very active discussions on the Index forum, we have finally arrived at a consensus on what datasets will be including in the 2015 Global Open Data Index (GODI). This year, as part of our objective to ensure that the […]

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Onwards to AbreLatAm 2015: what we learned last year

This post was co-written by Mor Rubinstein and Neal Bastek. It is cross-posted and available in Spanish at the AbreLatAm blog. AbreLatAm, for us “gringos”, is magical. Even in the age where everyone is glued to a screen, face to face connection is still the strongest connection humans can have; it fosters the trust that […]

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Beauty behind the scenes

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 […]

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Launch of timber tracking dashboard for Global Witness

Open Knowledge has produced an interactive trade dashboard for anti-corruption NGO Global Witness to supplement their exposé on EU and US companies importing illegal timber from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The DRC Timber Timber Trade Tracker consumes open data from DataHub.io to visualise where in the world Congolese timber is going. The dashboard makes […]

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Introducing ContentMine

If you are interested in Open Access and Open Data and haven’t hear about ContentMine yet then you are missing out! Graham Steel, ContentMine Community Manager, has written a post for us introducing this exciting new tool. ContentMine aims to liberate 100,000,000 facts from the scientific literature. We believe that “The Right to Read is […]

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Civic Tech and NGOs … wait, and donors – Can we be better collaborators in global Transparency and Accountability work?

This is a guest post by Kersti Ruth Wissenbach, our Open Knowledge Ambassador in the Netherlands. At our Re:publica session in May we set out to bring together transparency and accountability practitioners from traditional NGOs as well as from the civic tech scene. We came to recognise that, to a large extent, we keep working […]

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New Discussion Paper: “Democratising the Data Revolution”

“New technologies are leading to an exponential increase in the volume and types of data available, creating unprecedented possibilities for informing and transforming society and protecting the environment. Governments, companies, researchers and citizen groups are in a ferment of experimentation, innovation and adaptation to the new world of data, a world in which data are […]

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Just Released: “Where Does Europe’s Money Go? A Guide to EU Budget Data Sources”

The EU has committed to spending €959 988 million between 2014 and 2020. This money is disbursed through over 80 funds and programmes that are managed by over 100 different authorities. Where does this money come from? How is it allocated? And how is it spent? Today we are delighted to announce the release of […]

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