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Tell us how you think we can better support Open Data Day

- November 4, 2020 in community, Events, Open Data Day, Open Data Day 2021, Open Knowledge

This year has been such an eventful year for all of us. As 2020 nears its end, here at Open Knowledge Foundation we are starting to think about Open Data Day 2021. I checked my calendar this morning – and it’s only 4 months away ! Open Data Day is such a great opportunity for the entire open data community to come together to show the benefits of open data. Last year over 300 Open Data Day events took place over 50 countries. Our (OKF’s) role is facilitation As we start to make plans, we would like you to have your say on how we (OKF) can best support Open Data Day. Do you have any ideas? Or comments? Advice? Tell us how you think we can better support Open Data Day  We want to know 
  • The good stuff. What worked at Open Data Day last year? What did you enjoy most? Which events really stood out? Did you meet someone at Open Data Day 2020 that changed the way you work for the better?
  • The bad stuff. What didn’t work last year? What could we have done differently? How would you like Open Data Day to improve? How can we achieve more impact? Are there other data tracks we should focus on?
  • How can we help each other? Open Data Day brings people together from around the world to celebrate open data. Are you interested in volunteering to help the global event happen? We are thinking of running a live online event and maybe some global competitions. And perhaps doing some fundraising for the whole open data community. Do you want to help ?
We’d love it if you can take 3 minutes to share your thoughts in our survey and tell us how you think we can improve Open Data Day.   We want to make Open Data Day 2021 better than ever, and we can only do that with your help !

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Open Data Day 2021 will take place on Saturday 6th March

- September 22, 2020 in Featured, Open Data, Open Data Day, Open Data Day 2021

Open Data Day 2021 We are pleased to announce that Open Data Day 2021 will take place on Saturday 6th March. Open Data Day is the annual global celebration of open data facilitated by the Open Knowledge Foundation. The Open Data Day website is opendataday.org. Groups from around the world create local events on the day where they will use open data in their communities. It is an opportunity to show the benefits of open data and encourage the adoption of open data policies in government, business and civil society. In March 2020, more than 300 events took place across the world to mark the tenth Open Data Day despite some events having to shift online due to event restrictions relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to the generous support of our funders – Datopian, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Hivos, the Latin American Open Data Initiative (ILDA), Mapbox, Open Contracting Partnership and Resource Watch – we were able to give out more than 60 mini-grants to support the running of great community events on Open Data Day 2020.  Learn all about those events and discover organisations celebrating open data near you by reading our round-up blogpost. If you or your organisation would like to give financial support for Open Data Day or would be interested in sponsoring our mini-grant scheme, please get in touch by emailing opendataday@okfn.org. We will announce more details about the 2021 mini-grant scheme in the coming months. For Open Data Day 2021, you can connect with others and spread the word using the #OpenDataDay or #ODD2021 hashtags. Alternatively you can join the Google Group to ask for advice or share tips. By March 2021, we hope that in-person events will be able to take place in many locations but we know that differing levels of COVID-19 restrictions will be in force in a number of countries so we are looking at how best we can support the organisation of more virtual events. Find out more about Open Data Day by visiting opendataday.org where you can also add your event to the global map, find recommended data resources and use a free logo generator to create a logo to help your city mark the event.

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Open Data Day 2020: it’s a wrap!

- June 18, 2020 in Open Data Day, Open Data Day 2020

  On Saturday 7th March 2020, the tenth Open Data Day took place with people around the world organising over 300 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. Thanks to the generous support of this year’s funders – Datopian, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Hivos, the Latin American Open Data Initiative (ILDA), Mapbox, Open Contracting Partnership and Resource Watch – the Open Knowledge Foundation was able to give out more than 60 mini-grants this year. Sadly several events had to be cancelled or delayed as the COVID-19 pandemic affected countries around the world but some of our grantees were able to swiftly adapt their plans in order to deliver engaging virtual Open Data Day celebrations. The community registered a total of 307 events on the Open Data Day map with events taking place in every timezone and the Open Knowledge Foundation team captured some of the great conversations across Asia/Oceania, Africa/Europe and the Americas by using Twitter Moments.

Mini-grant scheme

This year’s tracks for the Open Data Day 2020 mini-grant support scheme were:
  • Environmental data: Using open data to illustrate the urgency of the climate emergency and spurring people to take a stand or make changes in their lives to help the world become more environmentally sustainable.
  • Tracking public money flows: Expanding budget transparency, diving into public procurement, examining tax data or raising issues around public finance management by submitting Freedom of Information requests.
  • Open mapping: Learning about the power of maps to develop better communities.
  • Data for equal development: How can open data be used by communities to highlight pressing issues on a local, national or global level? Can open data be used to track progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs?
Below you can read reports from all of the events which took place thanks to these mini grants:

Environmental data

Tracking public money flows

Open mapping

Data for equal development

Thanks to everyone who organised or took part in these celebrations and see you next year for Open Data Day 2021!

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Harnessing open data for agricultural business opportunities in the DRC: Open Data Day 2020 report

- June 15, 2020 in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Open Data Day, Open Data Day 2020

On Saturday 7th March 2020, the tenth Open Data Day took place with people around the world organising over 300 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. Thanks to generous support from key funders, the Open Knowledge Foundation was able to support the running of more than 60 of these events via our mini-grants scheme.  This blogpost is a report from Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo who received funding from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to help young and female agricultural entrepreneurs explore how they can use open data to create new businesses. This blogpost is published in French. Open Knowledge Foundation en tant qu’institution qui prône les données ouvertes a sélectionné une soixantaine d’organisations à travers le monde pour bénéficier du small grant en vue d’organiser la journée d’#OpenDataDay le 7 mars. Et, Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD/DRC) est parmi les 67 organisations bénéficiaire de ce fonds.  Opendata : une opportunité pour l’agrobusiness en RDC C’est sous ce thème que @ypard_rdc a organisé en date du 07 mars 2020, une séance d’information  et de sensibilisation auprès de 25 jeunes réunis au bureau @HabariRDC avec l’appui de #OpenKnowledgeFoundation. L’accès libre des données surtout agricoles est un sujet d’actualité à l’ère du numérique où des questions d’ordre mondial s’impose avec acuité. Le besoin en partage des nouvelles solutions est une nécessité d’autant plus il facilite un large éventail d’informations liées à la productivité agricole, à la maitrise des conditions météorologiques, au partage des innovations et offre une meilleure opportunité dans le domaine de l’entrepreneuriat agricole selon Eden Mvuenga, un des orateurs du jour. Pour Lisette Ntumba, une jeune entrepreneure et membre d’YPARD RDC : “Les données ouvertes restent importantes pour nous jeunes entrepreneurs agricoles qui investissent dans la transformation des fruits car, elles permettent de mieux s’outiller en termes d’informations sur les emballages, les qualités nutritionnelles et certaines données utiles sur la transformation des fruits.” Il sied de noter qu’il y a toujours un lien entre l’agrobusiness et accès libre aux données agricoles ouvertes; et plusieurs portails ainsi que plateformes en ligne offrent des possibilités d’accès aux données agricoles a renchérit Eden Mvuenga. Par ailleurs, l’internet reste incontournable comme moyen d’accès aux données ouvertes.  Pour aider les jeunes à mieux comprendre les concepts clés sur Open Data ainsi que la mission de Open Knowledge Foundation et de Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN), les participants ont dû échanger sur les critères fondamentaux qui caractérisent une donnée ouverte à savoir : l’accessibilité, la disponibilité ; la redistribution et la réutilisation.  Avec des exemples à l’appui, les jeunes ont partagé leurs expériences en matière d’accès aux données bien que butés à certaines difficultés telles que l’absence d’ouverture et/ou libéralisation des données agricoles au niveau des institutions étatiques via un portail gouvernemental des données ouvertes, le manque d’informations dans ce domaine d’Open Data.  Ainsi, comme l’a noté Marlene Kabemba, participante à la session d’OpenDataDay, l’accès aux données ouvertes est une bonne opportunité surtout qu’YPARD RDC s’y attèle depuis plusieurs années quoique les Open Data ont encore du chemin à faire  en  RDC, c’est ainsi qu’il s’avère impérieux d’en faire la promotion en vue de leur intégration dans les sphères étatiques et surtout celles en charge des jeunes pour que ces derniers s’offrent les chances de voir leurs projets réussir grâce à des informations ouvertes et à libre accès.   Avant de conclure la journée, plusieurs jeunes ont proposé à YPARD RDC de penser à créer OpenDataRDC (une structure qui s’occuperait uniquement de la promotion des données ouvertes, libres et accessibles en RDC).

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Teaching students to tell stories with budget data in Guatemala: Open Data Day 2020 report

- June 15, 2020 in Guatemala, Open Data Day, Open Data Day 2020

On Saturday 7th March 2020, the tenth Open Data Day took place with people around the world organising over 300 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. Thanks to generous support from key funders, the Open Knowledge Foundation was able to support the running of more than 60 of these events via our mini-grants scheme.  This blogpost is a report from Ojoconmipisto in Guatemala who received funding from Hivos to teach students and journalists how to investigate and tell stories from public budget and contracting data. This blogpost is published in Spanish. Ojoconmipisto participó el pasado 7 de marzo en la celebración mundial del Open Data Day. Organizó un taller dirigido a estudiantes de periodismo y periodistas en ejercicio, donde se habló de datos abiertos, compras públicas, fiscalización herramientas, acceso a la información y periodismo. Esta es la primera que el medio guatemalteco organiza la actividad, en las cuatro ediciones anteriores asistió como participante.  El 5 de marzo publicó la actividad en el mapa de eventos de Opendataday.org, que registró 305. Ojoconmipisto fue uno de los 19 participantes de la categoría “seguimiento de fondos públicos”. La convocatoria, en donde anunciaba que tenía espacio para 25 personas, la hizo en sus redes sociales (Facebook y Twitter). Al menos 168 personas consultaron el formulario en línea.  El encuentro se realizó en Hakuna Matata 2, un salón ubicado en la zona 13 de la ciudad de Guatemala. Asistieron 21 personas de un total de 27 que se registraron, entre ellos estudiantes de las Universidades del Istmo, Regional y Galileo, catedráticos universitarios y periodistas interesados en datos abiertos.  La actividad de 14:30 a 18:30 horas consistió de cuatro charlas, tres relacionadas con datos y una con la Ley de Acceso a la Información que para Ojoconmipisto es una herramienta de trabajo.  La primera a cargo de Daniel Ambeliz –autor de un estudio sobre los precios de antirretrovirales–, se centró en recursos digitales como Power BI, un programa que permite analizar bases de datos para crear visualizaciones y entender de manera sencilla. Junto a los participantes realizó un ejercicio práctico para identificar posibles enfoques y datos llamativos para una investigación.  En la segunda sesión la dirigió Silvio Gramajo, especialista en temas de transparencia, quien abordó sobre la importancia de la Ley de Acceso a Información, la rendición de cuentas y el uso de los datos abiertos para construir ciudadanía. Esta se transmitió a través de Facebook Live que registró 343 reproducciones y un alcance de 1,673 personas.  La tercera estuvo a cargo de Isaias Morales, reportero de Ojoconmipisto. El presentó una guía para fiscalizar la obra pública a partir del periodismo. Este documento es parte del proyecto “Obras bajo la lupa”, realizado con Open Contracting e Hivos, y monitorea 40 construcciones municipales. La guía explica procesos y cómo encontrar historias a partir el uso del portal de Guatecompras. Este es el sistema que registra todas las compras y contrataciones que se hacen con fondos públicos.  Para cerrar la jornada, Francelia Solano, reportera de Nómada, impartió la charla “un dato, una historia”. Compartió su experiencia de usar los datos para investigar a los alcaldes del país.  Al finalizar la actividad los estudiantes se acercaron a los dos reporteros de Ojoconmipisto para distintas consultas y solicitar orientación para realizar reportajes investigativos que requiere su universidad. Al menos cuatro de ellos quedaron en contacto con el equipo.  La actividad se tuiteó desde la cuenta de Ojoconmipisto con los hashtags #OpenDataDay y #ODD2020. Publicamos 26 tuits con la interacción de los asistentes.

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Celebrating open data initiatives in Paraguay: Open Data Day 2020 report

- June 15, 2020 in Open Data Day, Open Data Day 2020, Paraguay

On Saturday 7th March 2020, the tenth Open Data Day took place with people around the world organising over 300 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. Thanks to generous support from key funders, the Open Knowledge Foundation was able to support the running of more than 60 of these events via our mini-grants scheme.  This blogpost is a report from Girolabs in Paraguay who received funding from Mapbox to showcase local initiatives using and producing open data. This blogpost is published in Spanish. ¡Una vez más la comunidad datera en Paraguay ha acudido al llamado a la convocatoria anual y mundial sobre los datos abiertos, con esto sumamos ocho años desde su primera edición y estamos orgullosos y ansiosos de contarte lo que pasó! Nuestra cita con el pueblo ODD fue realizado el 07 de marzo en el Loffice Las Mercedes, un lugar de coworking situado en la capital de nuestro país y ya identificado como punto simbólico del tema ya que hemos recibido a 70 personas (nada mal para un jueves nocturno). La actividad fue organizada por la iniciativa social CIVILAB con la colaboración de Girolabs y la Fundación CIRD.  En esta edición hemos combinado el evento del ODD con la iniciativa social “Te Invito un Tere (TIUT)” como estrategia de organización y coordinación, pero …, ¿Qué es te Invito un Tere?  Es un espacio colectivo de intercambio y aprendizaje, donde se comparten experiencias sobre temáticas de participación ciudadana en diversas aplicaciones. Ya se llevaron adelante 9 ediciones desde el 2017, conociendo más sobre temáticas de educación, participación ciudadana, transparencia, medio ambiente, entre otros temas. Todas las ediciones son descontracturadas y cercanas, propiciando un ambiente de diálogo y colaboración. ¿Por qué decidimos juntar estas dos plataformas? Por la importancia social del tereré como un símbolo que nos une para hablar de lo que sea y porque el ODD y TIUT comparten los mismos principios de aprender, desaprender y volver a aprender colaborando y participando. ¿Cuál fue la modalidad de las exposiciones y cuáles fueron los temas destacados de este año? Como agregado especial esta vez optamos por las exposiciones “a toda hora”,  esto quiere decir que hubo exposiciones simultáneas en salas y en el tiempo del break que usualmente lo usamos para el coworking, siguiendo la temática datos y tereré hemos denominados a las tres salas destinadas para las exposiciones con nombres de remedios yuyos tradicionales como lo son el zarzaparrilla, capi´i catí y menta´í, esto sin lugar a duda le da una connotación bien paraguaya y de apropiación a los temas de datos abiertos. Presentamos Mapasocial. Marco Aponte, socio fundador de Civilab, presentó un proyecto, denominado Mapa Social, que consiste en una plataforma digital que permite hacer donaciones a las organizaciones civiles e incluso que las personas puedan sumarse como voluntarios de los programas.  Actualmente, la página registra 150 organizaciones no gubernamentales, pero la idea es sumar unas 300 organizaciones antes de finalizar el año.  La forma de unirse al directorio es simple. Las organizaciones simplemente deben solicitar el permiso en la página y completar sus datos. La idea es juntar a todos los actores en un solo canal, convirtiéndonos realmente en un mapa social”. Las organizaciones están georreferenciadas y la web cuenta con un visor de datos abiertos, así como la posibilidad de la descarga de la base de datos en CSV. En esta edición informamos gratamente que hemos recibido la postulación de temas desde los tres poderes del estado, la academia y el sector de organizaciones sociales, esto nos alegra mucho ya que cada vez más existe una mira integral sobre las aristas en que se mueven los datos abiertos, a continuación, te damos una breve reseña de los temas desarrollados: Zarzaparrilla Room
  • Ley de Protección de Datos en Paraguay (Martín Oxilia Aponte)
  • Datos Educativos en Paraguay: Perspectivas y Desafíos (Marcos Miranda – Juntos por la Educación)
  • Defensores, plataforma de sistematización de casos de tortura en Paraguay. Herramientas del programa de Frictionless Data del Open Knowledge Foundation.
Menta´i Room
  • Participación ciudadana, audiencias públicas, acceso a la información pública
  • La transparencia como condición de la ética pública (Academia – Viviana Romero)
  • “Los datos abiertos para soluciones globales” Experiencia de participación en Hackatón de la NASA. “Space Apps” (Giselle Ramírez Rojas)
Kapi’i katî Room
  • Nuevo Portal de Datos Abiertos del Ministerio de Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación (MITIC) y del Ministerio de Agricultura (MAG).
  • Presupuesto Ciudadano (Centro de Estudios Ambientales y Sociales)
  • Cartografía Open Data (Katrina Lisnichuk, Diego Bernal y Tomás López – MapPyOSM
  • Datos Abiertos del Poder Judicial.

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Agricultural data for equal development in Nigeria: Open Data Day 2020 report

- June 8, 2020 in Nigeria, Open Data Day, Open Data Day 2020

On Saturday 7th March 2020, the tenth Open Data Day took place with people around the world organising over 300 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. Thanks to generous support from key funders, the Open Knowledge Foundation was able to support the running of more than 60 of these events via our mini-grants scheme.  This blogpost is a report by Dr Philip Ifejika from the National Institute for Freshwater Fisheries Research in Nigeria who received funding from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to develop an event to sensitise agricultural stakeholders on the need and benefits of data for equal development.

Our Open Data Day 2020 event on “Sensitisation of Agricultural Stakeholders on the Need and Benefits of Data for Equal Development” got wide publicity in the social media like Facebook, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp groups which was hosted in National Institute for Freshwater Fisheries Research (NIFFR), New Bussa, Niger State Nigeria.

The event attracted interest and commendations from individuals and groups from different states of Nigeria namely; Niger, Anambra, Abuja, Benue, Enugu, and Rivers as well as African countries like Zambia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Sudan, Ghana, Mozambique and Tanzania mostly from members of Alumini Group-Farm Management Online Course including GODAN Discussion group.

The colourful event was declared open by Dr Mbagwu, I.G. Director of Research Operations, in the presence of NIFFR management staff and was well attended by 135 participants comprising of 56% men and 44% women.

Stakeholders were educated and sensitised on ASFA Database, Fisheries Database Project and the Need and Benefits of Data for Equal Development.

Promoting the ASFA Database, the Head of Library, Information and Documentation, Mrs V.A.K. Sado, shared NIFFR’s experience since 2003. Unfortunately ASFA has restrictions and is not available freely as open data.

Dr, Mbagwu, I.G. Director of Research Operations, then gave an update on the Fisheries Database project which was inconclusive due to poor funding and the inconsistence of government. According to him, the project was designed to cover the fisheries and inland water bodies’ data of the entire country.

For the main business of the day, Dr Philip Ifejika, the ODD programme implementer, provided more insights on Open Data Day, the Open Knowledge Foundation and the Data for Equal Development movement.

Dr Ifejika highlighted the benefits of open data to farmers, groups and organisations as well as its application at farm and organisation levels to develop business model and participate in data-driven agriculture. On data for equal development, he demonstrated link between equity and equality, need for gender empowerment and data aggregation.

Participants expressed delight with the new knowledge as well as expressing readiness to be open on data sharing, participate in database development and join more training to reap in the benefit of data economy, equity and equality in development.

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Mapping HIV facilities and LGBT-friendly spaces in the Philippines: Open Data Day 2020 report

- June 8, 2020 in Open Data Day, Open Data Day 2020, Open Knowledge, philippines

On Saturday 7th March 2020, the tenth Open Data Day took place with people around the world organising over 300 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. Thanks to generous support from key funders, the Open Knowledge Foundation was able to support the running of more than 60 of these events via our mini-grants scheme.  This blogpost is a report by Mikko Tamura from MapBeks in the Philippines who received funding from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to organise a mapping party to highlight HIV facilities and LGBT-friendly spaces on OpenStreetMap. The first Open Data Day celebration of Pilipinas Chubs X Chasers (PCC) was done at the Fahrenheit Club on 7th March 2020. The event started at 9pm and 16 participants joined the datathon to improve on the largest open HIV database in the country. PCC, the largest online community of LGBTQIA+ chubs, chasers and bears in the Philippines has dedicated its celebration of Open Data Day to teach fellow community (bear, chubs, chasers, supporters) members the importance of emancipating the data and making it more accessible to everyone who needs it. Mr Papu Torres, chairperson of PCC, and Mr Mikko Tamura, lead advocate of MapBeks, spearheaded the event as they believe that as members of their growing community can make a bigger impact by encouraging people to contribute by simply researching and validating information. Currently, MapBeks with the full support of PCC, has been developing maps and databases highlighting and representing the LGBTQ community. You may contribute to their working HIV database and maps here:  HIV Facilities Email/Website working database https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jdlDJw3eue0e6YK9mKgYfaTw5962e2H1g_tWZQscbcE/ edit?usp=sharing  HIV Facilities map http://tinyurl.com/mapbekshivmap  PCC’s objective of the ODD event was to collect/complete as much information on websites and email addresses of all HIV facilities in the country and contribute the information on OpenStreetMap for everyone to access.  Figure 1 Papu Torres, chairperson of Pilipinas Chubs X Chasers, teaching how to contribute and research on websites and emails for the open database of HIV Facilities. According to MapBeks, there are a total of 659 identified HIV facilities in the country, but the data varies from one organisation to another. It is part of the group’s advocacy to make such information more accessible, downloadable, and useable to the crowd specially for people living with HIV (PLHIV).
 The SlumBEAR Datathon was able to contribute 250 email addresses and 383 websites to the database. This constitutes more than 20% of the needed information that will be added on geotagged locations of clinics, hospitals, and health centres in the country. Lastly, Mr Leonard Kodie Macayan III, Mr. Fahrenheit 2020 and our country’s representative to the Mr Gay World competition, visited the crowd and showed support for our open data movement. Mr Fahrenheit is an annual male pageant, exclusive only for gay men and bisexuals. It is the first and the longest running of its kind, having been set up in 2003. Its mission is to support the advocacy towards mental health and tackling various issues like clinical depression, suicidal tendencies and the stigma of HIV/AIDS.  We would like to specially thank the Open Knowledge Foundation for the support and trust for our small community, and to Papu Torres, John Mojica, Ryan Sotto for making things possible. The Pilipinas Chubs X Chasers community will continue to support activities such as this in the future as it deems it necessary and empowering for smaller communities to be part of something bigger. See you next Open Data Day! For more information and partnerships, contact Mikko Tamura at mikko.tamura@gmail.com.

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Empowering R users to work with open spatial data in South Africa: Open Data Day 2020 report

- June 8, 2020 in Open Data Day, Open Data Day 2020, South Africa

On Saturday 7th March 2020, the tenth Open Data Day took place with people around the world organising over 300 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. Thanks to generous support from key funders, the Open Knowledge Foundation was able to support the running of more than 60 of these events via our mini-grants scheme.  This blogpost is a report from Exegetic Analytics in South Africa who received funding from Mapbox to expose the South African R community to a range of resources for working with open spatial data. satRday Joburg warmed up with an RLadies Joburg event hosted by Rain where our keynotes, Heather Turner and Colin Fay, spoke to us about publishing and promoting your R package as well as contributing to the R ecosystem. Coupled with pizza and great company this event was thoroughly enjoyed by all. satRday Joburg officially kicked off on 4 March 2020 with a 2-day “Introduction to R” workshop held by Bianca Peterson. The purpose of this workshop was to provide foundational knowledge to empower new R users with the right skills (and confidence) in order for them to efficiently tackle real-world problems. This workshop covered everything from connecting to Rstudio cloud to Data Visualisation. On 6 March, satRday workshop participants were spoilt for choice with a selection of three full-day workshops. Topics included “Building Successful Shiny Apps with {golem}” by Colin Fay, “R Package Development” by Heather Turner and “Web Scraping with R” by Megan Beckett & Andrew Collier. The satRday conference took place on 7 March 2020 at the Discovery building in the heart of Sandton. The programme (consisting of 21 presentations) was varied, catering for the diverse range of interests. Attendees seemed to really enjoy the diverse range of topics and variance in presentation lengths ranging from 5-minute lightning talks, 20-minute standard talks and finally to 45-minute keynote talks. Throughout the day the hashtag #satRdayJoburg was flying all over Twitter with the R community (both in attendance and elsewhere) sharing words of encouragement and admiration for talks and the atmosphere of the conference as a whole.  Here are some of our favourite excerpts: Organising a conference is a huge endeavour and it would not have been possible without the hard work of the organising committee or the generous financial assistance of our sponsors:

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Amplifying civil society voices focused on nutrition in Nigeria: Open Data Day 2020 report

- June 8, 2020 in Nigeria, Open Data Day, Open Data Day 2020

On Saturday 7th March 2020, the tenth Open Data Day took place with people around the world organising over 300 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. Thanks to generous support from key funders, the Open Knowledge Foundation was able to support the running of more than 60 of these events via our mini-grants scheme.  This blogpost is a report by Mary Ajakaye from Civil Society Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria in Nigeria who received funding from the Open Contracting Partnership to increase implementation of high impact nutrition interventions by encouraging the use of open data for decision-making. In commemoration of Open Data Day 2020, the Civil Society-Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN) hosted a virtual meeting on 15th May 2020. The virtual meeting which was convened by the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) chapter of the alliance drew 35 participants from the CS-SUNN Steering Committee, National Secretariat, FCT, Kaduna, Lagos, Nasarawa and Rivers State Chapters. Other participants were from the Federal Ministry of Budget and National Planning and the National Bureau of Statistics. The day was also marked with a live tweet chat on Twitter which showcased updates from the meeting and provided answers to questions on open data from CS-SUNN Twitter followers. More than just presentations, the meeting provided a collaborative ground to explore open data and amplify civil society voices calling for data to be more open and accessible in Nigeria. We considered if Nigeria was practicing an open data system, the flexibility of approved bodies “custodians of data” in releasing data, challenges of open data and recommended strategies to improve open data in Nigeria.  Key presentations during the meeting focused on “Overview of data and challenges in Data Access” by Mrs Glory Uzoaga, a statistician with the National Bureau of Service and “Data Management, Open storage, prerequisites for open data, ethics in data usage and importance in development work” by Airaoje Karl. In his presentation, Karl identified factors which inhibits an open data system to include copyright laws, policies and also the sensitivity of the data generated and stated that open data remains key for programming, decision-making and accountability in Nigeria.  He emphasised the need for open data as this will ensure all agencies, bodies and organisations that generate data should make such data available to the public in reusable formats. In a contribution CS-SUNN Executive Secretary Beatrice Eluaka explained that in working with government stakeholders, building trust is a key to accessing data. She explained the importance of developing briefs, informational materials, score cards and data analysis to provide stakeholders with an appraisal of where they have been doing well in terms of policy formulation and implementation, funding and budgeting. This, she said, gives room for further improvement. She cited how CS-SUNN engagement in some states in Nigeria has led to improved budgetary allocations for nutrition. The event convener, Ms Ngozika Ogbonna, urged participants to familiarise themselves with Nigeria’s Freedom of Information Bill to be empowered to access public information without being denied access to it. She identified some sources of data in Nigeria including the National Bureau of Statistics and the Data Release Calendar. Key recommendations from the meeting included:
  1. The need for all stakeholders and data/information users to study Nigeria’s FoI Act 2011 and understand what the position of the document on open data/data access is. This will simplify its use as a standpoint for advocacy on open data at all levels.
  2. Advocacy for a unified database where all research data (raw and processed) generated within Nigeria (by parastatals, research bodies, universities, professional bodies etc) can be posted for free access and use by any interested parties. The unified platform should be such that all ethical review boards can share research works submitted to them. Also, journals originating from Nigeria should be made accessible on the platform for free.
  3. Improved advocacy, sensitisation and citizen engagement to make data more open and accessible in Nigeria.
  4. The need for open data to begin with CSOs in Nigeria. All organisations that have generated any form of data that may be useful to other organisations. The government and other bodies should also share such data in reusable formats and on accessible platforms.
  5. The need for civil society organisations to get authorisation from appropriate authorities in Nigeria like institutional review boards, relevant ministries, departments and agencies in order to effectively collate data.
The CS-SUNN FCT chapter of the alliance appreciates the Open Knowledge Foundation sponsoring the event and the CS-SUNN National Secretariat for granting the Chapter the privilege to take the lead on this.

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