Worldwide celebration of open data on 3 March 2018

Worldwide celebration of open data on 3 March 2018 For immediate release

Saturday 3 March 2018 is International Open Data Day (http://opendataday.org/), an annual celebration of open data all over the world. For the eighth time in history, groups from around the world are hosting talks, hackathons, conferences, workshops and other meetups celebrating the benefits open data can bring their communities.

Open data is data that can be freely used, modified, and shared by anyone for any purpose (http://opendefinition.org/). This is more relevant in today’s society than ever before. When everyone has access to key information such as data on elections, government spending and scientific research, as well as the ability to use it to understand and shape their lives, this can help us tackle challenges such as poverty and climate change.

In Tanzania for example, Crowd2Map is hosting an event to map rural Tanzania to help end FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) by better mapping the areas where they are at risk into OpenStreetMap. In Kyrgyzstan, the #HackPoverty Data Journalism Hackathon will use open data to help find answers to questions such as how to overcome poverty in Kyrgyzstan and what are its main reasons? What needs to be done to make people in the country better? Is it possible to reduce costs and how to deal with corruption?

Open Data Day is a great opportunity to show the benefits of open data and encourage the adoption of open data policies in government, business and civil society. For the 2018 edition, Open Knowledge International partnered up with four organisations to provide support for selected events in four key areas that we believe open data can solve:

• Tracking public money flows and Open Contracting events with support by Hivos
• Open Science and Open Research Data events supported by SPARC
• Events with Open Mapping at their core supported through Mapbox
• Open Data for Equal Development sponsored through the Hewlett Foundation

Last year, nearly 350 events took place across different continents, with the hashtag #OpenDataDay trending on the day itself. Currently over 240 events have been registered on the map, with more being added daily: a selection of highlights from different continents is available on our blog.

Open Data Day (ODD) is a bottom-up initiative coordinated by the open data community. 2018 marks the 8th year we celebrate Open Data Day.

Since the first editions, things have changed from small hackathons with a few dozen cities to hundreds worldwide. It is an opportunity to bring all the stakeholders regarding open data together and discuss, inform and build together.

It is open for everyone who want to participate, whether you want to repurpose tools, you have new ideas or you see a space for innovation and need to discuss that with like-minded people.

More information Open Data Day website with map of events: www.opendataday.org

Announcing the 2018 International Open Data Day mini-grant winners: https://blog.okfn.org/2018/02/20/announcing-the-2018-international-open-data-day-mini-grant-winners/

Open Data Day 2018 is coming: what’s on the map? https://blog.okfn.org/2018/02/15/open-data-day-2018-is-coming-whats-on-the-map/

A lookback on Open Data Day 2017: https://blog.okfn.org/2017/05/11/a-lookback-on-open-data-day-2017/