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OKFestival 2018 becomes Open Knowledge Summit May 2018 in Thessaloniki

- November 30, 2017 in Events, Featured, OKFest, OKFest 2018, OKFestival, Open Knowledge Network

It is with regret that due to recent circumstances within Open Knowledge International, we have come to the conclusion that it is necessary to cancel the planned Open Knowledge Festival 2018. This announcement has been a very difficult decision for the team at OKI, however with such a short time frame ahead and a lack of secured funding for the Festival, we felt that we could not guarantee a successful event for all our participants. However, we want to take the opportunity to gather the Open Knowledge Network on the same dates, facilitating an event that embraces our network and is a better fit for where we are today. In this post we outline our alternative plans for Thessaloniki in May 2018.   Dear Network and partners: We are in a period of change at Open Knowledge International. After the resignation of our CEO Pavel Richter we took the time to reflect and think about the state of affairs. We recognise that we have not been as actively communicating as we should have been at Open Knowledge International. There have been some notable successes with initiatives such as Frictionless Data, the School of Data network, Open Data Day and the Global Open Data Index. It is very clear to us that those successes would not have been possible without the passion and commitment of our wider diverse Open Knowledge Network. Similar, if not greater, successes have been achieved by you in the network. Only two of these are the wonderful Prototype Fund project in Germany, and the MyData conference in Finland and Estonia. Full credit for that goes to Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland and Open Knowledge Finland, only two of the amazing Chapters and groups that make up the Open Knowledge Network. But when we look in the mirror at Open Knowledge International we don’t think that we have excelled in the way that we intended over recent years. We did not communicate clearly to you, our partners, how our organisational strategy was evolving and where we were going as an organisation. We did not engage you, the Open Knowledge Network, on equal footing. We asked for your involvement and contributions at specific points but did not engage you sufficiently on the bigger question of the overall journey we are on together: aiming for juster and more open societies. We are very keen to change this. The world of open knowledge has grown, developed and matured in the last couple of years. Ten years ago we were mostly talking about governments publishing data openly. But now, our collective open knowledge universe includes many other areas like open access to academic publications and open research data. Many groups are actively involved in the area of personal data, where we citizens demand more control over the data we share with corporations on a day-by-day basis. We believe our vision is still very much valid: we still look ahead to a future where everyone has free and open access to key information, enabling every human, citizen, and consumer to understand and shape their lives, homes and the world. Our values are also as relevant as ever: open knowledge, as defined by the open definition, forms the cornerstone of what we do. We value respect and tolerance, collaboration not control. We are pragmatic, not fanatic, we make & talk, and we focus on making change in the world. The Open Knowledge Network is a lot more than just an aggregation of its parts. We know that we must keep these parts in constant relation. And we propose that the best way to do this is to keep the Network linked  through specific domains. This idea builds very much on the concept of Working Groups we have had for many years in the Open Knowledge Network. We have been inspired by the School of Data network who already work in this way – they develop their mission and align strategies between the various organisations that are members of the network – achieving great impact in data literacy in this way. We propose to develop thematic networks within the other domains that are important to multiple Open Knowledge groups. For example, based on a recent survey among Open Knowledge groups we think there is sufficient level of engagement around topics such as Fiscal Transparency, Open Data infrastructure, Open Science, OpenGLAM, and Personal Data. Such a network already exists in the area of data training with the School of Data network. There are opportunities, we believe, to benefit from more dedicated collaboration, exchange of ideas and plans and possibly even develop shared objectives in these areas among Open Knowledge partners. Unfortunately, due to the circumstances at Open Knowledge International, we are not in a position to organise the Open Knowledge Festival we envisioned, and that many of us fondly remember from Berlin (2014) and Helsinki (2012). Not going ahead with the Festival as planned is a very difficult decision for us. However we are keen to ensure that we hold an event that will be successful for the entire Network, taking the opportunity to gather the Open Knowledge Network on the same dates, to do something that is better fitting for where we are today. We are looking forward to bringing our partners together at an Open Knowledge Summit event in Thessaloniki in May 2018 that will help us all collaboratively build the future of the Open Knowledge Network. We will follow up with you, our partners in the Open Knowledge Network, over the next couple of weeks to work together on the idea of the domain networks that we started to outline above. We want to hear from you, if you feel this is the right approach for developing the Open Knowledge Network and incorporate your ideas. Together with you, we want to take the network to the next level in the build-up to May 2018, so that we can all come together in Thessaloniki as an opportunity to meet each other in person and work together within those domains that matter to us. More will follow on this in the next couple of weeks and months. Finally, we want to give a big shout-out to our partners at Open Knowledge Greece. We are very grateful for the hard work that they have put into making the event in Thessaloniki the best it can be, and we look forward to continuing our collaboration with them as amazing hosts for the Open Knowledge Summit.

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OKFestival 2018 becomes Open Knowledge Summit May 2018 in Thessaloniki

- November 30, 2017 in Events, Featured, OKFest, OKFest 2018, OKFestival, Open Knowledge Network

It is with regret that due to recent circumstances within Open Knowledge International, we have come to the conclusion that it is necessary to cancel the planned Open Knowledge Festival 2018. This announcement has been a very difficult decision for the team at OKI, however with such a short time frame ahead and a lack of secured funding for the Festival, we felt that we could not guarantee a successful event for all our participants. However, we want to take the opportunity to gather the Open Knowledge Network on the same dates, facilitating an event that embraces our network and is a better fit for where we are today. In this post we outline our alternative plans for Thessaloniki in May 2018.   Dear Network and partners: We are in a period of change at Open Knowledge International. After the resignation of our CEO Pavel Richter we took the time to reflect and think about the state of affairs. We recognise that we have not been as actively communicating as we should have been at Open Knowledge International. There have been some notable successes with initiatives such as Frictionless Data, the School of Data network, Open Data Day and the Global Open Data Index. It is very clear to us that those successes would not have been possible without the passion and commitment of our wider diverse Open Knowledge Network. Similar, if not greater, successes have been achieved by you in the network. Only two of these are the wonderful Prototype Fund project in Germany, and the MyData conference in Finland and Estonia. Full credit for that goes to Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland and Open Knowledge Finland, only two of the amazing Chapters and groups that make up the Open Knowledge Network. But when we look in the mirror at Open Knowledge International we don’t think that we have excelled in the way that we intended over recent years. We did not communicate clearly to you, our partners, how our organisational strategy was evolving and where we were going as an organisation. We did not engage you, the Open Knowledge Network, on equal footing. We asked for your involvement and contributions at specific points but did not engage you sufficiently on the bigger question of the overall journey we are on together: aiming for juster and more open societies. We are very keen to change this. The world of open knowledge has grown, developed and matured in the last couple of years. Ten years ago we were mostly talking about governments publishing data openly. But now, our collective open knowledge universe includes many other areas like open access to academic publications and open research data. Many groups are actively involved in the area of personal data, where we citizens demand more control over the data we share with corporations on a day-by-day basis. We believe our vision is still very much valid: we still look ahead to a future where everyone has free and open access to key information, enabling every human, citizen, and consumer to understand and shape their lives, homes and the world. Our values are also as relevant as ever: open knowledge, as defined by the open definition, forms the cornerstone of what we do. We value respect and tolerance, collaboration not control. We are pragmatic, not fanatic, we make & talk, and we focus on making change in the world. The Open Knowledge Network is a lot more than just an aggregation of its parts. We know that we must keep these parts in constant relation. And we propose that the best way to do this is to keep the Network linked  through specific domains. This idea builds very much on the concept of Working Groups we have had for many years in the Open Knowledge Network. We have been inspired by the School of Data network who already work in this way – they develop their mission and align strategies between the various organisations that are members of the network – achieving great impact in data literacy in this way. We propose to develop thematic networks within the other domains that are important to multiple Open Knowledge groups. For example, based on a recent survey among Open Knowledge groups we think there is sufficient level of engagement around topics such as Fiscal Transparency, Open Data infrastructure, Open Science, OpenGLAM, and Personal Data. Such a network already exists in the area of data training with the School of Data network. There are opportunities, we believe, to benefit from more dedicated collaboration, exchange of ideas and plans and possibly even develop shared objectives in these areas among Open Knowledge partners. Unfortunately, due to the circumstances at Open Knowledge International, we are not in a position to organise the Open Knowledge Festival we envisioned, and that many of us fondly remember from Berlin (2014) and Helsinki (2012). Not going ahead with the Festival as planned is a very difficult decision for us. However we are keen to ensure that we hold an event that will be successful for the entire Network, taking the opportunity to gather the Open Knowledge Network on the same dates, to do something that is better fitting for where we are today. We are looking forward to bringing our partners together at an Open Knowledge Summit event in Thessaloniki in May 2018 that will help us all collaboratively build the future of the Open Knowledge Network. We will follow up with you, our partners in the Open Knowledge Network, over the next couple of weeks to work together on the idea of the domain networks that we started to outline above. We want to hear from you, if you feel this is the right approach for developing the Open Knowledge Network and incorporate your ideas. Together with you, we want to take the network to the next level in the build-up to May 2018, so that we can all come together in Thessaloniki as an opportunity to meet each other in person and work together within those domains that matter to us. More will follow on this in the next couple of weeks and months. Finally, we want to give a big shout-out to our partners at Open Knowledge Greece. We are very grateful for the hard work that they have put into making the event in Thessaloniki the best it can be, and we look forward to continuing our collaboration with them as amazing hosts for the Open Knowledge Summit.

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OKFestival 2018  – It’s time for a competition!

- October 4, 2017 in OKFest, OKFest 2018, OKFestival

Over the last couple of months we have been examining the concept of OKFestival 2018 to create a backdrop for what will be an innovative, collaborative and inspiring event.  With collaborative input from networks, chapters and other interested parties, a concept has been developed.  This concept will shape all aspects of the event and will grow with the creation of the programme and the participation of communities. We now need your help. OKFestival 2018 needs a “motto”, a “tagline”, a headline grabbing title that will encompass what we are trying to do and what the event stands for.  The motto for OKFestival 2014 was “Open Minds to Open Action”. We would like you to read the concept below and come up with a short sentence that we could use in all the publicity and throughout the event. Possible suggestions include:
  • Open Knowledge Without Borders
  • Open Knowledge Without Barriers
  • Towards Open Knowledge Without Barriers
Once inspiration has struck please email your idea through to info@okfestival.org or post it on our Facebook page You have until Wednesday 11th October so get those creative juices flowing!

What is Open Knowledge Festival 2018 about?

The leading concept of Open Knowledge Festival in 2018 is fostering a cross-exchange of ideas between members and groups that make up the open knowledge movement in all its diversity, as well as by bringing new communities into the conversation. This concept seeks to work towards a vision of “open knowledge without barriers”, where a range of actors from diverse backgrounds – domain-driven CSOs, open data organisations, open government experts, data journalists, and so on – can learn and collaborate towards shared knowledge and strong and sustainable social change.

Why

When we host Open Knowledge Festival in 2018, it will have been nearly 4 years since the last festival in Berlin, and in that time, the open knowledge movement has evolved. Other events have taken up and pushed forward different elements of open knowledge agenda. These events have been effective in bringing together communities focusing on a specific topic within the movement but this has come at the expense of a cross-exchange of ideas. At Open Knowledge International, we have been asking ourselves, how can we best add to the dialogue, and further the evolution of the movement, through Open Knowledge Festival?
  • Open Knowledge Festival in 2012 helped to mark the open knowledge movement.
  • Open Knowledge Festival in 2014 helped catalyse the open knowledge movement.
  • In 2018, Open Knowledge Festival seeks to grow, expand the open knowledge movement and convince society and general public to embrace it.
Open Knowledge Festival, as a community-driven event hosted by a civil society organisation, is well placed to focus more on the questions, needs and interests of civil society. For years now, as a community, we have been making the argument to governments and other powerful institutions that there are immense societal benefits to opening up their data and information, with distinctive results in different countries. However, our ultimate goal – achieving a more open society – cannot be achieved with open data and open knowledge advocates alone. In increasingly digitalised societies, data becomes an increasingly powerful instrument for positive change. At the same time, we are conscious that this creates new gaps between those who can come along in a digitalised societies, and those who struggle with these new technologies. We strive for nothing less than making digital societies work for everyone, and therefore need as many as we can on board as part of the open knowledge movement. Therefore, we need to enlist, as partners, our fellow civil society actors to join our effort and to push for more, and better, information and data on the issues that directly impact our lives. Open Knowledge Festival presents a unique opportunity to convene a broad range of civil society actors to work towards a shared strategy for liberating or generating the data and information we need to shape our society. 

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Open Knowledge Festival 2014 report: out now!

- November 6, 2014 in community, Featured, Join us, News, OKFestival

Today we are delighted to publish our report on OKFestival 2014! Open Knowledge Foundation-Festival 2014 at Kulturbrauerei in Berlin. This is packed with stories, statistics and outcomes from the event, highlighting the amazing facilitators, sessions, speakers and participants who made it an event to inspire. Explore the pictures, podcasts, etherpads and videos which reflect the different aspects of the event, and uncover some of its impact as related by people striving for change – those with Open Minds to Open Action. Want more data? If you are still interested in knowing more about how the OKFestival budget was spent, we have published details about the events income and expenses here. If you missed OKFestival this year, don’t worry – it will be back! Keep an eye on our blog for news and join the Open Knowledge discussion list to share your ideas for the next OKFestival. Looking forward to seeing you there!

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OKFestival 2014: we made it! A write-up & Thank You note

- September 5, 2014 in community, Events, Featured, OKFest, OKFestival

Open Knowledge Festival 2014! We built it, made it and ran it – it was a blast, thank you!
  • 1056 participants from 60 countries
  • 215 facilitators and moderators
  • 17 Programme Team members
  • 70 volunteers
made it all happen. Who says that numbers are dry? Just by writing them down, our hearts are melting. 1 Group work! – Pic by Gregor Fischer Six weeks have passed since the end of OKFestival 2014, many of you participated in our feedback survey, we all caught up with the lack of sleep and are now hard at work with the public post-event report which will be shared on the festival website in the next few weeks (keep your eyes peeled!). At the festival, we tried a lot of experiments, and experimenting is both risky and thrilling – and you were up for the challenge! So we thought it was time to take a moment to have a look at what we built together and celebrate the challenges we bravely took on and the outcomes that came out of them (and, yes, there are also learnings from things which could have gone better – is there any event with bullet-proof WiFi? can a country not known to be tropical and not used to air conditioning experience a heat wave on the 2 days out of 365 when you’ll run an event?) 2 Rocking selfies! – Pic by Burt Lum Summing it up:
  • an event for the whole open movement: we were keen to be the convenor of a global gathering, welcoming participants from all around the world and a multitude of folks from open communities, organisations, small and big NGOs, governments, grassroots initiatives as well as people new to the topic and willing to dive in. We wanted to create an environment connecting diverse audiences, thus enabling a diverse groups of thinkers, makers and activists to come together and collaborate to effect change.
3 Ory Okolloh & Rufus Pollock fireside chat – Pic by Gregor Fischer
  • hands-on and outcome-driven approach: we wanted the event to be an opportunity to get together, make, share and learn with – and from – each other and get ready to make plans for what comes next. We didn’t want the event to be simply wonderful, we also wanted it to be useful – for you, your work and the future of the open movement. We’ve just started sharing a selection of your stories on our blog and more is yet to come this month, with the launch of our public post-OKFestival report, filled out with outcome stories you told us in the weeks after the event – who you met, what did you start to plan, what’s the new project coming out of the festival you’re already working on as we speak!
4 Meeting, talking, connecting! – Pic by Gregor Fischer
  • narrative streams: We made a bold choice – no streams-by-topic, but streams following a narrative. The event was fuelled by the theory that change happens when you bring together knowledge – which informs change – tools – which enable change – and society – which effects change. The Knowledge, Tools and Society streams aimed to explore the work we do and want to develop further beyond the usual silos which streams-by-topic could have created. Open hardware and open science, open government and open sustainability, open culture and open source, arts and privacy and surveillance.
5 Your vote, your voice! – Pic by Gregor Fischer
  • crowd sourced programme and participatory formats and tools (and powerpoints discouraged): We encouraged you to leave the comfort zone with no written presentations to read in sync with slides, but instead to create action-packed sessions in which all participants were contributing with their knowledge to work to be done together. We shared tips and tricks about creation and facilitation of such formats and hosted hangouts to help you propose your ideas for our open call – and hundreds of community members sent their proposals! Also, in the most participatory of the spirits, OKFestival also had its own unconference, the unFestival run by the great DATA Uruguay Team, who complemented our busy core programme with a great space where anyone could pitch and run her/his own emerging session on the spot, to give room and time to great new born ideas and plans. And a shout out also goes to a couple of special tools: our etherpads – according to the OKFestival Pad of Pads 85 pads have been co-written and worked with – and our first code of collaboration which we hope will accompany us also in future ventures!
6 Green volunteering power – always on! – Pic by Gregor Fischer
  • diversity of backgrounds, experiences, cultures, domains: months before we started producing the festival, we started to get in touch with people from all around the world who were running projects we admired, and with whom we’d never worked together before. This guided us in building a diverse Programme Team first, and receiving proposals and financial aid applications from many new folks and countries later on. This surely contributed to the most exciting outcome of all – having a really international crowd of the event, people from 60 countries, speaking dozens of different languages. Different backgrounds enriched everybody’s learning and networking and nurtured new collaborations and relationships.
Wow, that was a journey. And it’s just the beginning! As we said, OKFestival aimed to be the fuel, the kick-off, the inspiration for terrific actions and initiatives to come and now it’s time to hear some of most promising stories and project started there! You can start having taste following the ever-growing OKFestival Stories article series on our blog and be ready for more, when in the next weeks we’ll publish more outcomes, interviews, quotes and reports from you, the protagonists of it all. Thank you again, and see you very soon! Your OKFestival Team

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Revisiting OKFestival 2014

- August 19, 2014 in community, Events, Featured, OKFestival, Open Knowledge

Hard to believe that a full month has passed since the end of a fantastic OKFestival 2014. While our team is hard at work following up on all the great ideas and impulses from the event, and evaluating what we can learn, we would like to highlight some of the magnificent write-ups and other documentation that has been made in pretty much all of the community around the world. Over 1000 people from 60 countries came together to enjoy a slice of summer in Berlin. But they also were there to discuss, share, think, create new ideas and to collaborate with a focus to open minds to open action. We are especially grateful for our fab team of community volunteers who created these storify-collections to mark each day of the event Here are some reminders for OKFestival 2014 in pictures Here are some more of our favorite things A big thank you to all who shared thoughts about OKFestival 2014 on social media, who wrote blog posts and articles about the event, and who helped us spread the word about what we learnt. Here are just some of the reflections we collected:
#OKFest14 – Outcomes, Impressions & Thoughts And finally, here’s our fantastic short video, which summarizes impressions from OKFestival 2014 perfectly Let us know if you are taking any new partnerships and ideas formed at OKFestival 2014 forward, we’d love to hear about any follow-up projects!

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Open Design Definition workshop at OKFestival 2014 in Berlin

- August 5, 2014 in Berlin, definition, event, Featured, OKFestival, Open Design Definition

At the recent OKFestival in Berlin, where over 1,000 open-everything enthusiasts and experts gathered for 3 days in the charming Kulturbrauerei, a workshop was held by the Open Design & Hardware Working Group to expand the Open Design Definition that had been booted in the months leading up to the festival. The idea with the […]

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Open Design Definition workshop at OKFestival 2014 in Berlin

- August 5, 2014 in Berlin, definition, event, Featured, OKFestival, Open Design Definition

At the recent OKFestival in Berlin, where over 1,000 open-everything enthusiasts and experts gathered for 3 days in the charming Kulturbrauerei, a workshop was held by the Open Design & Hardware Working Group to expand the Open Design Definition that had been booted in the months leading up to the festival. The idea with the […]

Comments Off on Open Design Definition workshop at OKFestival 2014 in Berlin

Open Design Definition workshop at OKFestival 2014 in Berlin

- August 5, 2014 in Berlin, definition, event, Featured, OKFestival, Open Design Definition

At the recent OKFestival in Berlin, where over 1,000 open-everything enthusiasts and experts gathered for 3 days in the charming Kulturbrauerei, a workshop was held by the Open Design & Hardware Working Group to expand the Open Design Definition that had been booted in the months leading up to the festival. The idea with the […]

Comments Off on Open Design Definition workshop at OKFestival 2014 in Berlin

Open Design Definition workshop at OKFestival 2014 in Berlin

- August 5, 2014 in Berlin, definition, event, Featured, OKFestival, Open Design Definition

At the recent OKFestival in Berlin, where over 1,000 open-everything enthusiasts and experts gathered for 3 days in the charming Kulturbrauerei, a workshop was held by the Open Design & Hardware Working Group to expand the Open Design Definition that had been booted in the months leading up to the festival. The idea with the […]

Comments Off on Open Design Definition workshop at OKFestival 2014 in Berlin