The challenge
While making data available is a crucial step towards promoting and facilitating inclusion, innovation, and development, data must be used and analyzed effectively and innovatively in order to maximize its value. In the domain of data innovation, the private sector, civil society organizations, developers, citizens and governments have an important role to play. Lessons can be drawn from the open data community’s experiences to inform future work and make the best use of available resources. This kind of collaboration not only helps to avoid duplication of efforts, it can also support creative thinking and innovation by bringing together diverse actors to tackle complex, global problems.
Proposals
The following draft actions were developed through sessions at IODC15. You are invited to share your feedback on these actions using the comments box below. A final roadmap of actions will be published in mid-2015.
Key action: Embed open data approaches within thematic data communities
The African Data Consensus introduced the importance of recognising different data communities, working on issues ranging from health and agriculture, to environmental sustainability and good governance. Open data is not just another data community, it is a method that can be applied to practical problem solving within these communities. Scaling up the social impact of open data is not about the export of ideas from one country to another, but involves finding the right methods and models to understand key problems, and then sharing ideas and knowledge on how open data approaches can help address these problems.
Additional action: Global Open Data Agriculture and Nutrition working groups
Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) is an initiative bringing together over 120 member organizations from different sectors and settings around the world. Working with its’ partners, and building on a discussion paper on addressing agriculture and nutrition challenges with open data, GODAN will form Working Groups to focus on open data as a tool for practical problem solving. Amongst these, it will also develop a study on how agriculture and nutrition data can be a tool for economic development.
More information | Join GODAN
Additional action: Refine international standards for parliamentary openness
The Open Parliaments Network will build upon feedback from IODC 2015 in order to improve emerging international standards in the areas of parliamentary ethics, campaign finance and lobbying. By creating standards based around engagement with users, tools and approaches to scrutinising data can be more easily exchanged between practitioners from different countries.
More information | Find out more about the Open Parliaments Network
Additional action: Develop and launch local projects
The Organization for American States Open Government Fellows will develop and launch their own research or consultation projects relating open government data to their specific fields of interest.
Additional action: Supporting thematic network meetings
Support is needed to maintain existing thematic networks, and to help new networks develop. This might come from provision of space for thematic networks or organise fringe events around open data conferences, or organising open data tracks within thematic conferences. Spaces for shared learning between those involved in building thematic networks are also important.
Action anchors
Action anchors are taking a lead on shaping the conversation in the run up to the conference, and facilitating the conference session. They will be blogging about the key issues to be address, and existing initiatives that respond to the challenges in this area.
Blog posts
- Scaling networks of innovation in Agriculture and Nutrition May 12, 2015 – In the Strengthening Networks of Public Interest Innovation action area we’ll be discussing many different domains where open data can make a difference, including Agriculture and Nutrition. In this guest post, the GODAN Secretariat outline the importance a global partnership. The Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) initiative has grown rapidly since its […]
- Data+ Public Innovation: Where do we go from here? April 24, 2015 – This is a guest blog post by Fabrizio Scrollini, as part of the IODC Roadmap project, linked to Action Area 5: Strengthening networks of public-interest Innovation. It’s been five years since the first international open data conference took place. At that time, “open data” was a curious idea with some potential, but greeted with skepticism in […]
Proposals
Proposals for addressing this challenge will be developed over the course of IODC15, and shared here shortly afterwards.