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Welcome to the Open Knowledge International Newsletter.
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October 2018 Issue

Conference season is in full swing! In this newsletter we update you on our involvement in the IODC, MyData and FORCE18 conferences, as well as news from our network and lots of upcoming events for the rest of October and November.

The International Open Data Conference (IODC), along with many side events, took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 24-28 September. It was great to see broader participation of global south countries in this edition. Among the many interesting conversations and sessions was the workshop about the refresh of the Open Data Charter principles. We also collaborated in a workshop to discuss how the official financial data from governments, published using the Fiscal Data Package standard, can be better linked with data about public contracts to allow for more integrated tracking of money flows. At the Open Data research symposium, we helped facilitate a workshop about open data governance - a much talked about topic at the conference.

For the second time in history IODC opened a space for us to talk about open washing: a term used to describe a simulation of openness. Our community coordinator Oscar Montiel hosted the Open Washing session together with Ana Brandusescu of the World Wide Web Foundation, to dig deeper into some of the issues and causes of open washing, as well as possible solutions. Read more on our blog on what was discussed, and how you can give your feedback: we expect this to be a discussion we can have more than once every conference.

Another important recent event was MyData 2018: the gathering for the global community of human-centric personal data advocates. Our Executive Director Karin Christiansen joined one of the panels to share her thoughts on the common principles of the open data and personal data fields: you can watch her contribution here. We were also excited to see MyData officially founding itself as a global organisation on 11 October - read more in our Networks section on how to get involved!
Our Head of Programmes, Sander van der Waal, spoke at the recent EU Datathon event on Infrastructure, Standards and Governance - Key developments in open government data
Highlights from our projects
It has been a busy time for Frictionless Data: we hosted a workshop at the FORCE18 conference in Montreal, and will organise another one at the DataFest Tblisi in November. This week saw the release of datapackage-pipelines version 2.0, which is part of Data Factory - an open framework for building and running lightweight data processing workflows quickly and easily. Read more on our OKLabs blog or keep an eye out for the video of our recent OKLabs community call on this topic.
Mark your calendars: on Saturday 2 March 2019 it is time for the ninth edition of Open Data Day, the annual celebration of open data all over the world.

In preparation for the event, you can already share your ideas for your community on our forum or on the Open Data Day mailinglist. 
Version 1 of the [Open] Fiscal Data Package is now available. We built the OpenSpending portal on top of this specification, to make it really easy to publish budget and spending data. Once the financial data is published, a whole suite of tools is readily available to anyone to view, visualise and integrate the data.

Read up on our blog on how to publish budget and spending data openly, or watch the webinar we hosted for GIFT in September.
 
For over a decade, Open Knowledge International have been investing experience in technology, training, policy, and research, to pioneer openness in new areas. Learn more about how we can help you get the most out of your data  and check our case studies of recent work at okfn.org/tools-services
From our network
  • MyData Global, an international non-profit organisation dedicated to empower-ing individuals regarding personal data, was founded on 11 October 2018 in an online meeting with 100+ participants from over 20 countries. MyData Global is a spin-off from Open Knowledge Finland and came to life after years of work around MyData-ideas. OK Finland will continue to be involved, mainly on a national level. Several Open Knowledge chapters are also working with it, since open data and MyData are strongly related elements of a fair data economy. The first general meeting of MyData Global will be held on 15 November in Barcelona: it is open to all and remote participation is available. Application for membership is also open to individuals and organisations. Read more
     
  • This summer Open Knowledge Nepal together with YUWA Nepal, Nepali in Data and NAXA facilitated the PAHICHAN - Youth Empowerment, Youth Leadership and Data Workshop, where more than 126 energetic youths were trained and sensitized on the concept of open data. The aim was to create a network of young data leaders who will lead and support the development of their communities through the use of open data as evidence for youth-led and data-driven development. Read more
     
  • The OpenGLAM initiative, a global network of people and organizations working to open up content and data held by Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums, is currently evaluating the OpenGLAM principles. These offer a declaration of intention to build a community of practice which helps GLAMs share their collections with the world. In the last five years, the OpenGLAM community has become more global, adopted more tactics and strategies for integrating openness into institutions. But do the principles reflect this change? To find out, you are invited to fill in a survey about the utility of the principles. Read more
Upcoming events
In London, this weekend (26-28 October) is reserved for Mozilla Festival (MozFest) 2018. Under the title Where Web Meets World, the festival for the open internet movement will showcase world-changing ideas and technology through workshops, talks, and interactive sessions. Our Executive Director Karin Christiansen will be present as well.
OpenCon 2018 takes place from 2-4 November in Toronto, Canada, with the aim to empower the next generation to advance open access, open education and open data. Our developer advocate Serah Rono will be there representing Open Knowledge International. For those unable to attend, there will be possibilities to follow the event remotely: check the website for more details.
From 7-9 November we will be at the DataFest Tblisi in Georgia with a workshop on Frictionless Data. The event brings together journalists, CSO activists, marketing specialists, business professionals, government officials, data analysts, developers and designers working with data or willing to explore the data opportunities to Inspire, Share knowledge, Network, and Collaborate. 
Parallel to the MyData Global first general meeting, the Smart City Expo World Congress is held from 13-15 November in Barcelona, Spain. It exists in order to empower cities and collectivize urban innovation across the globe. Through promoting social innovation, establishing partnerships and identifying business opportunities, the event is dedicated to creating a better future for cities and their citizens worldwide. Our founder Rufus Pollock is one of the keynote speakers.
Last but not least, the ODI summit takes place in London on 20 November. The event will explore the intersection of data’s value across sectors – from commercial business to public services, the arts to charities, and gather people from governments, businesses and civil society to discuss major issues of the day – from ethics to trust, business models to emerging technology. Our Open Knowledge network gets a 15% discount on the ticket price here.
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