August 24, 2012
What is “open development”? It is the idea that openness, transparency and access to knowledge are good for economic development. The Open Knowledge Foundation has a community of technologists, development workers and even donors and government interested in promoting greater access to information about development – active in the promotion of the idea of “open development”.
They have a blog and mailing list, and are now set to meet in Helsinki at the Open Knowledge Festival, September 17-22. Quoting them
Open knowledge – from open data, to open educational resources, to open software – can play a powerful role in supporting sustainable global development. The Open Development stream is about exploring how the OKFest community can engage with key development challenges, from addressing chronic poverty, to providing access to education and healthcare and addressing climate change and natural resource management. It is also about bringing voices from development actors into the heart of the Open Knowledge debate, supporting two-way learning about making open data and open knowledge work for development. We’ll be mixing up presentations from the cutting edge of open development, with critical conversations to develop shared visions of open development, and practical workshops and hack sessions to put ideas of open development into practice.
To be discussed are the opening of aid data, how to make opendata accessible to the most people possible, and new technological developments.
The International Land Coalition will be attending the Festival, and will share some of its work on Friday September 21, including the Land Observatory. We are hoping that Helsinki is a space to discuss the opening of geospatial data - and what we will do with it once open.
If you cannot attend in person, follow the discussion on the hashtag #OKFest on Twitter or check the website for updates.