logo

Frictionless DarwinCore Tool by André Heughebaert

This blog is part of a series showcasing projects developed during the 2019 Frictionless Data Tool Fund.  The 2019 Frictionless Data Tool Fund provided four mini-grants of $5,000 to support individuals or organisations in developing an open tool for reproducible research built using the Frictionless Data specifications and software. This fund is part of the […]

Read more

Open Knowledge Foundation CEO Catherine Stihler awarded OBE

Our chief executive Catherine Stihler has been awarded an OBE by Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge. She was recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for her service to politics. Yesterday, Catherine took part in the investiture at Buckingham Palace, watched on by her proud family. Catherine said: “It was an immense honour to receive […]

Read more

Meet Lily Zhao, one of our Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows

The Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows Programme is training early career researchers to become champions of the Frictionless Data tools and approaches in their field. Fellows will learn about Frictionless Data, including how to use Frictionless Data tools in their domains to improve reproducible research workflows, and how to advocate for open science. Working […]

Read more

Meet Monica Granados, one of our Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows

The Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows Programme is training early career researchers to become champions of the Frictionless Data tools and approaches in their field. Fellows will learn about Frictionless Data, including how to use Frictionless Data tools in their domains to improve reproducible research workflows, and how to advocate for open science. Working […]

Read more

Getting ready for Open Data Day 2020 on Saturday 7th March

Next year marks the 10th anniversary of Open Data Day! Open Data Day is the annual event where we gather to reach out to new people and build new solutions to issues in our communities using open data. The next edition will take place on Saturday 7th March 2020. Over the last decade, this event […]

Read more

Meet Daniel Ouso, one of our Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows

The Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows Programme is training early career researchers to become champions of the Frictionless Data tools and approaches in their field. Fellows will learn about Frictionless Data, including how to use Frictionless Data tools in their domains to improve reproducible research workflows, and how to advocate for open science. Working […]

Read more

Meet Sele Yang, one of our Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows

The Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows Programme is training early career researchers to become champions of the Frictionless Data tools and approaches in their field. Fellows will learn about Frictionless Data, including how to use Frictionless Data tools in their domains to improve reproducible research workflows, and how to advocate for open science. Working […]

Read more
Rojo the Comma Llama

csv,conf returns for version 5 in May

Save the date for csv,conf,v5! The fifth version of csv,conf will be held at the University of California, Washington Center in Washington DC, USA, on May 13 and 14, 2020.    If you are passionate about data and its application to society, this is the conference for you. Submissions for session proposals for 25-minute talk […]

Read more

Ethiopia adopts a national open access policy

In September, Ethiopia adopted a national open access policy for higher education institutions. In a guest blog on the EIFL website, Dr Solomon Mekonnen Tekle, librarian at Addis Ababa University Library, organiser of the Open Knowledge Ethiopia group and EIFL Open Access Coordinator in Ethiopia, celebrates the adoption of the policy. This is a repost […]

Read more

Join #Hacktoberfest 2019 with Frictionless Data

The Frictionless Data team is excited to participate in #Hacktoberfest 2019! Hacktoberfest is a month-long event where people from around the world contribute to open source software (and – you can win a t-shirt!). How does it work? All October, the Frictionless Data repositories will have issues ready for contributions from the open source community. […]

Read more

A recap of the 2019 eLife Innovation Sprint

Over 36 hours, Jo Barratt and Lilly Winfree from Open Knowledge Foundation’s Frictionless Data team joined 60 people from around the world to develop innovative solutions to open science obstacles at the 2019 eLife Innovation Sprint. This quick, collaborative event in Cambridge, UK, on September 4th and 5th brought together designers, scientists, coders, project managers, […]

Read more

A halfway point update from the 2019 Frictionless Data Tool Fund

In June 2019, we launched the Frictionless Data Tool Fund to facilitate reproducible data workflows in research contexts. Our four Tool Fund grantees are now at the halfway point of their projects, and have made great progress. Read on to learn more about these projects, their next steps, and how you can also contribute. Stephan […]

Read more

Introducing Datashades.info, a CKAN Community Service

Do you use CKAN to power an open data portal? In this guest post Link Digital explains how you can take advantage of their latest open data initiative Datashades.info. Datashades.info is a tool designed to deliver insights for researchers, portal managers, and the wider tech community to inform and support open data efforts relating to […]

Read more

Frictionless Data at the EPFL Open Science in Practice Summer School

In early September our Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research product manager, Lilly Winfree, presented a workshop at the Open Science in Practice Summer School at EPFL University in Lausanne, Switzerland.  Lilly’s workshop focused on teaching early career researchers about using Frictionless software and specs to make their research data more interoperable, shareable, and open. The […]

Read more

Women in data can help tackle gender inequality

Encouraging more women and girls to learn data skills can help tackle gender inequality and build a more diverse society, a conference will hear today. Speaking at the annual ‘Doing Data Right’ conference in Edinburgh, Open Knowledge Foundation chief executive Catherine Stihler will call on governments to do more to engage young women in data […]

Read more

Setting up a way forward for real-time data in Nepal

Over the past few years, Nepal has seen the growth in data demand and use because of the increased number of CSOs working actively promote the importance of open data. Today, the quickness with which information is delivered is crucial to citizens, government and enterprises. We at Open Knowledge Nepal believes that the data should […]

Read more

A warm welcome to our Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows

As part of our commitment to opening up scientific knowledge, we recently launched the Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows Programme, which will run from mid-September until June 2020.  We received over 200 impressive applications for the Programme, and are very excited to introduce the four selected Fellows: Monica Granados, a Mitacs Canadian Science Policy […]

Read more

World Library Congress – Closing Libraries is ‘short-sighted’

Closing down libraries to save money is ‘one of the most short-sighted decisions that public officials can make’, the World Library and Information Congress has heard. Speaking at the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) annual congress in Athens, Open Knowledge Foundation chief executive Catherine Stihler said ‘libraries are too often seen as […]

Read more

OK Somalia: Data Literacy Training Program

In recent years Data Literacy has become a global issue and many data literacy initiatives have been documented throughout the world, particularly in the field of Higher Education. Open Knowledge Somalia introduces an initiative for Data Literacy to assist researchers, data journalists, scholars, librarians, and other professionals. This initiative intends to enhance and improve soft […]

Read more

The rise of MyData in Japan and discussions around personal data use

On May 15, 2019, MyData Japan conference was held in Tokyo, co-organized by Open Knowledge Japan and MyData Japan. Open Knowledge Japan has been organizing MyData Japan conferences for the past 3 times (2017, 2018, and 2019), and the movement has been growing steadily. Interests from the corporate sector has been the strongest, with 22 […]

Read more

Open Knowledge and MyData – same roots, shared values

The origins of MyData can be traced back to the Open Knowledge Festival held in Finland in 2012. There, a small group of people gathered in a breakout session to discuss what ought to be done with the kind of data that cannot be made publicly available and entirely open, namely personal data. Over the […]

Read more

Why greater tax transparency is needed to help fix the broken global tax system

Public CBCR by Financial Transparency Coalition is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 The international tax system is broken and in need of urgent updating to address issues which allow globalised businesses to move their profits and intellectual property around the world, often to locations where they pay the least tax. Indeed some economists estimate that “close to […]

Read more

Transforming the UK’s data ecosystem: Open Knowledge Foundation’s thoughts on the National Data Strategy

Following an open call for evidence issued by the UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Open Knowledge Foundation submitted our thoughts about what the UK can do in its forthcoming National Data Strategy to “unlock the power of data across government and the wider economy, while building citizen trust in its use”. We […]

Read more

Missed opportunities in the EU’s revised open data and re-use of public sector information directive

Published by the European Union on June 26th, the revised directive on open data and the re-use of public sector information – or PSI Directive – set out an updated set of rules relating to public sector documents, publicly funded research data and “high-value” datasets which should be made available for free via application programming […]

Read more

Meet our 2019 Frictionless Data Tool Fund grantees

In order to facilitate reproducible data workflows in research contexts, we recently launched the Frictionless Data Tool Fund. This one-time $5,000 grant attracted over 90 applications from researchers, developers, and data managers from all over the world. We are very excited to announce the four grantees for this round of funding, and have included a […]

Read more

EU must work harder to tackle disinformation

The European Union must work harder to tackle the spread of disinformation on the internet, the Open Knowledge Foundation has warned. In a letter to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, chief executive Catherine Stihler has called for action to be ‘prioritised’ regarding online platforms that fail to do enough to tackle disinformation or do not fulfil […]

Read more

Summer update of Open Knowledge Nepal

The last couple of months have been quite busy for the team of Open Knowledge Nepal with lots of projects, workshops and events. In this blog, we try to summarize all the activities which were conducted in the past couple of months as part of our regular updates. Empowering women With the aim of strengthening […]

Read more

New Open Knowledge Foundation board chair and vice-chair appointed

The Open Knowledge Foundation is delighted to announce that Vanessa Barnett has been appointed as the new Chair of the Board of Directors, and Helen Turvey has been appointed as Vice-Chair. Vanessa Barnett said: “It is a great honour to be appointed Chair of the Open Knowledge Foundation, at an incredibly exciting time for the organisation. […]

Read more

Building a Nordic Anti-Corruption Data Ecosystem

Open Knowledge Sweden (OKSE) jointly with Transparency International Latvia and Transparency International Lithuania continues to promote usage of open data for combating corruption in the Baltic and Nordic countries.   Stockholm, 10 June 2019 – On May 15, 2019 Open Knowledge Sweden (OKSE) jointly with Transparency International Latvia and Transparency International Lithuania started the activities […]

Read more

Statement from the Open Knowledge Foundation Board on the future of the CKAN Association

The Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) Board met on Monday evening to discuss the future of the CKAN Association. The Board supported the CKAN Stewardship proposal jointly put forward by Link Digital and Datopian. As two of the longest serving members of the CKAN Community, it was felt their proposal would now move CKAN forward, strengthening […]

Read more

UK Health Secretary challenged to tackle access to medicines

The Open Knowledge Foundation has written to Westminster Health Secretary Matt Hancock to demand the UK Government plays its role in addressing the global lack of access to medicines. The challenge comes after the UK disassociated itself from an international agreement aimed at reducing the cost of drugs across the world. The resolution at the World […]

Read more

Reflections on the 2019 European parliamentary elections

With around 200 million people voting across Europe, the make-up of the new European Parliament for the next five years has been decided. While the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) won the most seats, its contingent is down on the previous election. The traditional centre-left grouping of the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) – which I was […]

Read more

The Sum of Our Parts – Open Organisations

This post was originally published by Open Data Charter. The “open” sector, encompassing organisations working on transparency, civic participation, and open data, has grown fast in many countries in the past decade, aided by political champions and a generous funding environment. Today, there is a sense of waning political interest amongst previous high-level advocates and an […]

Read more

For a fair, free and open future: celebrating 15 years of the Open Knowledge Foundation

Fifteen years ago, the Open Knowledge Foundation was launched in Cambridge by entrepreneur and economist Rufus Pollock. At the time, open data was an entirely new concept. Worldwide internet users were barely above the 10 per cent mark, and Facebook was still in its infancy. But Rufus foresaw both the massive potential and the huge […]

Read more

Open Data Day 2019: it’s a wrap!

On Saturday 2nd March 2019, groups from around the world organised over 300 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. In this blog, we wrap up the ninth edition of Open Data Day with a summary of all that happened across the globe, as well as a look ahead to the […]

Read more

A growing data community in Paraguay

This report is part of the event report series on International Open Data Day 2019. On Saturday 2nd March, groups from around the world organised over 300 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. Girolabs from Paraguay received funding through the mini-grant scheme by Hivos / Open Contracting Partnership, to organise events under the Open Contracting theme. The […]

Read more

Naturalist Datathon: Bogotá (Datatón Naturalista)

This report is part of the event report series on International Open Data Day 2019. On Saturday 2nd March, groups from around the world organised over 300 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. The Karisma Foundation from Colombia received funding through the mini-grant scheme by the Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research project to organise […]

Read more

Open Data Day: Open Science events in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Costa Rica

This report is part of the event report series on International Open Data Day 2019. On Saturday 2nd March, groups from around the world organised over 300 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. AfricaTech from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Society for Open Science and Biodiversity Conservation (SCiAC) […]

Read more

Two years on, little action from the EU on public country-by-country reporting

Two years ago, members of the European Parliament voted to force large multinational corporations registered in Europe to reveal how much tax they pay, how many people they employ and what profits they make in every country where they work. The transparency measure – known as public country-by-country reporting (or public CBCR) – was first […]

Read more

Panoptikum: exploring new ways to categorize a collection of various unusual and unique objects

This blog has been reposted from https://blog.datalets.ch/054. For the past two and a half years, the artist Jürg Straumann has been working on a digital retrospective of his life’s work, spanning over four decades of visual art. The latest stage of this project involved creating an interactive way to browse this unique and very personalized database. During […]

Read more
Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows Programme

Open call: become a Frictionless Data Reproducible Research Fellow

The Frictionless Data Reproducible Research Fellows Programme, supported by the Sloan Foundation, aims to train graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and early career researchers how to become champions for open, reproducible research using Frictionless Data tools and approaches in their field. Fellows will learn about Frictionless Data, including how to use Frictionless tools in their domains […]

Read more

Publishing Budget and Spending Open Data

This blog was written by Lorena Rivero del Paso (GIFT) and Oscar Montiel (Open Knowledge Foundation) and was originally posted on the GIFT blog. Increasingly, we see examples where lack of transparency and accountability from governments affects trust. Being able to follow public money flows is an important step to recover trust and aim towards […]

Read more

Open Knowledge Foundation community meet up at csv,conf,v4

When: May 7th, 5-7pm Location: Eliot Center, Portland, OR Cost: Free; pizza & beverages available Join Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) for a community event the night before csv,conf,v4! This meet and greet happy hour will feature lightning talks on open projects, designated networking time, and pizza. We invite OKF community members to submit ideas for […]

Read more

EU Council backs controversial copyright crackdown

The Council of the European Union today backed a controversial copyright crackdown in a ‘deeply disappointing’ vote that could impact on all internet users. Six countries voted against the proposal which has been opposed by 5million people through a Europe-wide petition – Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Finland and Sweden. Three more nations abstained, but the […]

Read more

Open Data Day: Experience in Costa Rica & Elections, Public Contracts and Open Science: the mix at #ODD19 Guatemala

This report is part of the event report series on International Open Data Day 2019. On Saturday 2nd March, groups from around the world organised over 300 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. ACCESA from Costa Rica and Sofia Montenegro, one of our School of Data Fellows from Guatemala, received funding through […]

Read more

ODD19 Mexico City: communities sharing DataLove & Data to fight violence against women

This report is part of the event report series on International Open Data Day 2019. On Saturday 2nd March, groups from around the world organised over 300 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. This is a joint report produced by Técnicas Rudas and SocialTIC from Mexico, who received funding through the mini-grant […]

Read more

Open Data Awareness Event at Kyambogo University, Uganda

This report is part of the event report series on International Open Data Day 2019. On Saturday 2nd March, groups from around the world organised over 300 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. The event reported on in this post took place on 9 March, and was organized by Samson […]

Read more

Open Data Day: Strengthening Citizen Participation & Women in Power

This report is part of the event report series on International Open Data Day 2019. On Saturday 2nd March, groups from around the world organised over 300 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. This is a joint report produced by NaimLab (Peru) and Centro Latinoamericano de Derechos Humanos (CLADH) from Argentina, […]

Read more

Open Data Day 2019: a joint report by Open Knowledge Colombia and Datasketch

This report is part of the event report series on International Open Data Day 2019. On Saturday 2nd March, groups from around the world organised over 300 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. This is a joint report produced by Open Knowledge Colombia and Datasketch, who received funding through the mini-grant […]

Read more

Open Mapping in Brazil for Open Data Day 2019

This report is part of the event report series on International Open Data Day 2019. Code for Curitiba and Open Knowledge Brasil / UG Wikimedia in Brazil received funding through the mini-grant scheme by Mapbox to organise events under the Open Mapping theme. This is a joint report by Ricardo Mendes Junior & Celio Costa Filho: their biographies are included […]

Read more