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 go from strength to strength – and establish open data in the public eye.
Here are the highlights of what is keeping us busy – and information on how you can get involved in helping us drive
Open Knowledge forward, no matter where you are based. Check out our
Storify recap, or
German- and
French-language blogs for further coverage.
To see the Events Calendar for 2015, scroll on down.
2014 in review
#sports
Our hackdays went global, with Milan joining Basel and Sierre for a weekend of team spirit and data wrangling. The
projects which resulted ranged from the highly applicable to the ludicrously inventive, and led us to demand better
from elite sport. The event was a starting point for the Open Knowledge
Sports Working Group, aiming to “build bridges between sport experts and data scientists, coaches and communities”. We’re right behind you,
Rowland Jack!
#international
The international highlight of the year was a chance for a sizeable group of our members to
meet, interact and make stuff with the Open Knowledge community at
OK Festival Berlin. Unforgettable! Later in the year, the
Global Open Data Index got
journalists knocking on our doorstep. However, the recently opened
timetable data is
not as open as some would like to think – leading us to continue
making useful apps with our own open
Transport API, and the issuing of a
statement in Errata.
#community
The yearly
Opendata.ch conference attracted yet again a big crowd of participants to
hear talks, participate in hands-on
workshops, and launch
exciting projects (e.g.
Lobbywatch). We got some
fantastic press in the media, with the public encouraged to think of the mountains of data as a national treasure. At our annual association meeting we welcomed
three new Directors, and tightened up with the Wikimedia community inviting us to
develop open data together.
#science
CERN’s launch of an
open data portal made
headlines around the world. We were excited and more than a little dazzled by what we found when we dug in – and could hardly imagine a better boost for the upcoming initiative
OpenResearchData.ch. Improving
data access and research transparency is, indeed, the
future of science. Swiss public institutions like the
National Science Foundation are taking note, and together we are making a stand to make sure scientific knowledge stays open and accessible on the Internet we designed for it.
#politics
Swiss openness in politics was waymarked in 2014 with a
motion regarding Open Procurement Data passing through parliament, legal provisions to opening
weather data, the
City of Zürich and
Canton of St.Gallen voting in commitments to transparency, and fresh support for accountability and open principles throughout the country. This means more work and new responsibility for people in our movement to get out there and answer tough questions. The encouragement and leadership on an international level is helping us enormously to work towards national data transparency, step by step.
#government
The
Swiss Open Government Data Portal launched at OKCon 2013 has 1’850 datasets published on it as of January 2015, now including data from cantons and communes as well as the federal government. New portals are opening up on a cantonal and city level, more people are working on related projects and using the data in their applications to interact with government. With
Open Government Data Strategy confirmed by the Swiss Federal Council in April, and established as one of the six priorities of the federal
E-Government action plan, the project is only bound to pick up more steam in the years ahead.
#finance
With
Open Budget visualisations now deployed for the canton of Berne and six municipalities – including the City of Zurich, which has officially joined our association – the finance interest group is quickly proving that it’s not all talk. Spending data remains a big challenge, and we look forward to continuing the fight for financial transparency. This cause is being boosted by interest and support from the next generation, such as the 29 student teams participating in a recent
Open Data Management and Visualization course at the University of Berne.
#apps/#apis
We may be fast, but our community is faster. Many new open data apps and APIs have been released and enhanced by our community: New open data projects were released by the community: such as
WindUndWetter.ch and
SwissMetNet API, based on
just-opened national weather data resulting from a partial
revision of the Federal Act on Meteorology and Climatology. Talk about “hold your horses”: a city
waste removal schedule app led to intense debate with officials over open data policy, the results making
waves in the press and open data developers
leading by doing.
#culture
An
OpenGLAM Working Group started over the summer, and quickly formed into a dedicated organising committee of
our first hackathon in the new year. Towards this at least a dozen
Swiss heritage institutions are providing content, data, and expertise. We look forward to international participants virtually and on-location, and
your open culture data!
What’s coming up in 2015
Even if we do half the things we did in ‘14, a big year is in store for our association. Chances are that it will be even bigger: this is the year when the
elections of the Federal Council are happening for the first time since our founding. It is an important opportunity to put open data in the spotlight of public service. And we are going to be busy running multiple flagship projects at the same time in all the areas mentioned.
Here are the main events coming up – we will try to update this as new dates come in, but give us a shout if we are missing something:
Getting involved
So,
happy new year! We hope you are resolved to make more of open data in 2015. The hardest part may be taking the first step, and we are here for sport and support.
There is lots going on, and the easiest way to get started is to take part in one of the events. Start with your own neighbourhood: what kind of data would you like to have about your town? What decisions are you making that could benefit from having a first-hand,
statistically significant,
visually impressive, and above all, honest and critical look at the issue?
Lots is happening online and offline, and if you express interest in a topic you’re passionate about, people are generally quick to respond with invitations and links. To stay on top of things we urge you to join our
mailing list, follow us on
social media, and check out the
maker wiki and
forum. Find something you are passionate about, and jump right in!
Reach out if you have any questions or comments.
Planet Open Knowledge 
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, however, we want to change that and that we why we’re now rebooting the series and plan to make this a monthly activity.
Enough talk, let’s start our journey – here are some of the things that happened in January!
French speaking countries map | Credit : aaker, wikimedia, public domain
We hope this new communication channel will help to develop the Open Knowledge movement across French-speaking communities in Europe, Africa, America and the world over.
This list will can be used for, but is not restricted to, the discussion of things such as:
