Open Knowledge Foundation

CKAN was created by the OKFN and its assets are held in trust by it. The activities for the year ahead are related to maintaining and advancing the platform to serve its users. Trusted by hundreds of portals across the world and supported by an active community, it focuses on extensibility and integration with other tools.  CKAN is used by many multilateral organisations like UNHCR, OCHA, WFP and FAO, as well as philanthropic organisations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Several hundreds of CKAN instances exist around the world, including National Governments e.g. Canada (<https://open.canada.ca/en/open-data>), USA (<https://catalog.data.gov>), Finland (<https://www.avoindata.fi/>), Argentina (<https://www.datos.gob.ar/>), Japan (<https://data.go.jp/>), Germany (<https://www.govdata.de/>) etc. and Sub-national and Local governments e.g. Montreal (<https://donnees.montreal.ca/>), Barcelona (<https://opendata-ajuntament.barcelona.cat/>), Buenos Aires (<https://data.buenosaire

Continuing the development and community efforts around Frictionless Data, a progressive open-source framework for building data infrastructure – data management, data integration, data flows, etc. It includes various data standards and provides software to work with data. The Frictionless Data project aims to make it easier to work with data - by reducing common data workflow issues (what we call friction). Frictionless Data consists of two main parts, software and standards. <https://frictionlessdata.io/https://frictionlessdata.io/tag/case-studies/>

School of Data is the Open Knowledge Foundation project to advance data literacy in civil society, helping make effective use of information that directly impacts people’s lives. Through its global network of data literacy practitioners and trainers, School of Data seeks to address data skills gaps in order to amplify the messages of all sectors through the use of data by ensuring that governments, organisations and newsrooms have the knowledge, resources and tools they need to participate fully in the information age. DPIs and DPGs will be included in the updated curriculum.

Leveraging on the OKFN’s know-how in developing standards and the Foundation´s institutional  experience creating action-oriented communities, we are incubating a working group formed by  practitioners, researchers and civic activists to understand the current digital infrastructures, data practices and standards shaping elections and prototype its open, inclusive, trusted and accountable alternative.

Technology in recent years has adopted a complex, wasteful and expensive approach to serve its purpose. The way that software is developed and that technology solutions are conceived, coded and deployed is not adopting a climate friendly, accessible and sustainable approach. The same goes for technology in the public interest, leaving its beneficiaries many times with limited choices. They would either adopt a free version of a complex software they really do not need or invest considerable amounts of money in technology projects that ambition to match their commercial competitors. While there are many efforts trying to support critical components upon which the Internet and technology today is built, our proposal is to review how technology in the public interest, with a particular focus on DPGs,  is made today and try to propose a new way of thinking about the technologies we want and need. From conception to adoption, the tech we want project is a conversation for developers and tec

Together with CNRS, we are exploring possible approaches to governing DPI as a commons, drawing from the governance of data/digital ecosystems and practices of commoning and co-creation from the open movement.