Tag Archives: ODD2014

Open Data Day 2014 – Five Fun Events Around the World

Leave a reply

With over 110 Events happening world wide it is impossible to talk about every Open Data Day event. But looking almost every event on the wiki I’ve been deeply moved and inspired by the various efforts, goals and aspirations of the people who have organized these events.

In order to help others understand why Open Data Day matters as well as what can happen on it, here are five open data day events that I’m stumbled across that are doing something particularly fun or interesting.

1. Capetown & Johannesburg, South Africa

Their Description:

Coders, data wranglers and data investigators will pair up to look at one of three openly available datasets we have on hand, and work out the most interesting questions they can ask of it in less than half an hour. After 30 minutes, it’s all change – another desk, another partnership, another exciting data set to turn into a story.

What we’re hoping is that you’ll learn tips and tricks for getting data, querying it, creating quick visualizations and turning it to stories that people want to know about. You’ll learn from different people with a variety of skills, hopefully that you wouldn’t normally work with. And we’re also hoping it will be four hours of fun.

Why I love it: I love the focus on learning. With the participation of hacks and hackers the goal is clearly to help journalists and citizens learn new skills, not so they can do something with the data sets available on open data day, but so they can better play with data sets in the future to pursue stories or help a community. The point of speed data dating is thus not to build a product, the product is the skills and networks developed and, with luck the future stories and analyses that will be told by those who participated.

2. Buenos Aires, Argentina

Their description:

On February 22nd we will go out to the street and play with local data and some street artists to create beautiful visualizations.

Why I love it: Street art open data? What a great way to try to raise awareness of the importance of data literacy and transparency. In addition, how awesome is it to move outside the digital realm and use data to create artifacts that are not necessarily digital. And if there are artists involved? Jer would be so happy to read about this.

3. Greenfield, MA, United States

Their description:

We’re convening a small group to work with the Franklin Regional Council of Governments on a user-friendly way to map private wells in Western Massachusetts…

…Why is it important to map wells?

  • Only about 5% of private wells in Massachusetts are geolocated.
  • Many towns in Western Mass rely 100% on private wells.

Not knowing where our wells are can (and does) lead to water contaminated by nearby septic systems, dumping, and pollutant storage. Aside from the obvious health concerns, there are also financial implications from remediation costs and lowered property values.

Why I love it: Wow, WOW, WOW!!! This is maybe one of the coolest open data day events I’ve ever seen. Here you have a small community focusing on a problem that is real and tangible to them. Moreover, open data could have a direct and meaningful impact on the issue. I love the focus. I love that rallying point. I love the high impact with low resources (their building has minimal heat – so they are advising people to layer up). I wish these crew all the best success and hope to see an update.

4. Nagoya, Japan

Their Description:

Now, highlight of this year is “data of Nagoya Castle!”

The nearly 300 maps and survey drawings of the Nagoya Castle will be made open prior to Open Data Day. The Nagoya Castle office is cooperating with us and has decided that we can use their data for “International Open Data Day.” The references to the image are here.

Why I love it: Well – fill disclosure, my understanding of this event is through the prism of Google translate. But if I understood correctly… there are a few open data events in Japan that have a strong focus on local history which I find totally fascinating. At this event in Nagoya they are bringing in a professor who is an expert in open data as well as expert in the Nagoya castle to talk about the data that is being made open. In addition they are organizing and actual physical tour of the caste. Open Data meets local history buffs!

5. Cairo, Egypt

Their Description:

We will be organizing an online and decentralized event in Cairo, Egypt for the Open Data Day. There are numerous suggested tracks depending on the participants set of expertise:

For translators (المترجمون)

  • Open Data Handbook: The handbook discusses the legal, social and technical aspects of open data. It can be used by anyone but is especially designed for those seeking to open up data. It discusses the why, what and how of open data – why to go open, what open is, and the how to ‘open’ data. Translate it into Arabic here
  • Translate any of the School of Data short tutorials, for example, What is Data?, Telling a Story with Data, Finding Data, or Any other course/modules

For bloggers (المدونون)

Write blog posts about Open Data related topics and case studies, and don’t forget to use the following hashtag, #ODD2014. Possible ideas for blog posts:

  • Write about the concept of Frictionless Data
  • Case studies how you searched for, extracted and used governmental data
  • Listing of local organizations working or promoting Open Data or advocating for more Transparent and Open Governments

For Developers (مطوري البرامج)

  • Scrape data from capmas and put it into Open Format
  • Scrape data (Budget or the The Financial Monthly Bulletin) from the Minister of Finance and upload it to OpenSpending.org,
  • Create a tool to scrap the traffic data from bey2ollak and put it in an open format.

For Data Wranglers (هواة جمع البيانات)

Why I love it: I love that there are calls to action for a variety of people – including those who have no coding skills at all. How genius is it to organize an event to localize/translate the Open Data handbook? This is something a large number of people could do – and better still can help make open data accessible to a still larger pool of people.

And for the other roles the suggestion of projects – particular with a focus on the national budget and government operations data (capmas) suggests there is a strong civil society presence within the open data community. Will be super interested to see what progress they make and if there is broader interest in their work.

Open Data Day 2014 is Coming Feb 22 – Time to Join the Fun!

4 Replies

So, with much help from various community members (who reminded me that we need to get this rolling – looking at you Heather Leson), I pleased to say we are starting to gear up for Open Data Day 2014 on February 22nd, 2014.

From its humble beginnings of a conversation between a few friends who were interested in promoting and playing with open data, last year Open Data Day had locally organized events take place in over 100 cities around the world. Check out this video of open data day in Kathmandu last year.

Why makes Open Data Day work? Mostly you. It is a global excuse for people in communities like yours to come together and organize an event that meets their needs. Whether that is a hackathon, a showcase and fair, lectures, workshops for local NGOs and businesses, training on data, or meetings with local politicians – people are free to organize around whatever they think their community needs. You can read more about how Open Data Day works on our website.

Want to join in on the fun? I thought you’d never ask. Listed below are some different ways you can help make Open Data Day 2014 a success in your community!

A) How can I let EVERYONE know about open data day

I love the enthusiasm. Here’s a tweet you can send:

#OpenData Day is community powered in a timezone near you.  http://opendataday.org/ #ODD2014

Yes, our hashtag is #ODD2014. Cause we are odd. And cause we love open data.

B) I’d like to participate!

Great! If you are interested in participating in check out the Open Data Day wiki. We’ve just unlocked the pages so cities haven’t been added yet but feel free to add your city to the list, and put down your name as interested in participating. You can even check to see who organized the event last year to see if they are interested in doing it again.

C) Forget about participating, I want to coordinate an Open Data Day event in my city.

Whoa! Very exciting! Here’s a short checklist of what to do:

  • If you didn’t organize one last year, check to see if anyone in your city did. It would be good to connect with them first.
  • Read the Open Data Day website. Basically, pick up on our vibe: we want Open Data Day to work for everyone, from novices who know little about data to experts like Kaggle participants and uber geeks like Bruce Schneier. These events have always been welcoming and encouraging – it is part of the design challenge.
  • Okay, now add your city to the list, let people know where it will be taking place (or that you are working on securing space), let them know a rough agenda, what to expect, and how they can contribute.
  • Add yourself to the 2014 Open Data Day map. (Hint: Wikipedia lists Lat/Long in the information side bar for each cities wiki page: “Coordinates: 43°42′N 79°24′W”)
  • Join the Open Data Day mailing list. Organizers tend to share best practices and tips here. It’s not serious, really just a help and support group.
  • Check out resources like this and this about how to organize a successful event.
  • Start spreading the news!

D) I want to help more! How can Open Data Day work more smoothly everywhere?

Okay, for the truly hardcore you right, we need help. Open Data day has grown. This means we’ve outgrown a whole bunch of our infrastructure… like our webpage! Everyone involved in this is a volunteer so… we have some extra heavy lifting we need help with. This includes:

a. Website template update: The current Open Data Day template was generously donated by Mark Dunkley (thank you!!!). We’d love to have it scale a little better and refresh the content. You can see the code on github here. Email me if you are interested. Skills required: css, design

b. Translation: Can you help translate the ODD site into your language? You can submit the requests on github or send a document to heather.leson at okfn dot org with the content. She’ll do the github stuff if that’s beyond you.

c. Map: Leaflet and layers helpers wanted! We’d like a map geek to help correct geolocation and keep the 2014 map fresh with accurate geo for all the locations. Github repo is here and the event list is here.

What’s next?

I’m really looking forward to this year… I’ve lots more thoughts I’ll be sharing shortly.

Plus, I can’t wait to hear from you!