IODC18

Faced with changing political winds and priorities, some open data initiatives around the world are stalling. Recent political events in the US and Europe have led to a loss of faith in government, while research on the sustainability of open data portals in Europe have highlighted issues with maintaining political support and funding.

At the same time, emerging markets – such as Mexico, Argentina, Ukraine and Philippines – are recognising open data as a tool for economic development and innovation. But these initiatives need to tread a fine line between openness and the protection of people’s privacy. 

A preeminent panel of leaders will share their predictions on the future of the open data movement, and debate and discuss practical recommendations for how the sector can reorganise and collaborate to achieve greater impact
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A talk show in which we will talk about what does it mean to have a safe space for women and why it is important in the open data spaces  - and how to build these safe spaces in your organizational culture to represent the gender perspective needed in our work. We will answer important questions, such as: Do your Gender projects need to be run by women or non-binary people? What are the challenges for women working with open data? How can we can deal with them? What are the opportunities to increase the engagement of women with open data? What would an open data ecosystem that is really by women, about women and for women look like?

This roundtable will showcase the many ways the private sector leverages and contributes to the open
data ecosystem. It will demonstrate the roles the private sector can play, identify the main challenges for governments and NGOs in engaging the private sector, and explore ways to fully engage the private sector to build the future of open data.

Over the past several years, the benefits of open data for the private sector have become more and more clear. Private-sector companies are using open data to improve their operations, launch new products and services, and innovate in many ways that have economic benefits. Private-sector companies have also started to contribute to the open data ecosystem by sharing their own datasets.

But despite the potential, there is still a gap between government open data providers and the businesses with an interest in their data. Government data stewards may be unaware of how their data is being used, and how it could be used even more effectively if it were made more relevant, useful, and accessible for the private sector. Conversely, companies may be unaware of the business value of government data, and may have no connection to the government leaders who could help supply that data to them. We still need to break down the walls between government and the private sector to realize the full business and economic value that open data can provide.

This roundtable will showcase the many ways in which the private sector leverages and contributes to the open data ecosystem, to highlight successes and find ways to build on them. Participants from diverse regions will show how private-sector organizations, ranging from small companies to large corporations, generate value as data users, data intermediaries, and data providers. The session will begin with lightning talks from each participant and continue with a group discussion of issues and solutions to foster private-sector use of open data.

This session brings together three communities that are not talking to each other enough, in order to chart a joint pathway forward around AI ethics, open data, privacy/surveillance. The outcome will be a coming together of these three groups around a joint data rights framework which will then be translated into regulatory and policy change. We expect to discuss policy ideas such as algorithmic transparency and data ownership.

Trustworthiness underpins public support for data innovation and open government. Public responses to the Cambridge Analytica and Facebook scandal and data breaches show what happens when that trust is lost in ‘data stewards’- those public or private sector organisations entrusted to collect, store, and curate data about us.

What can data stewards do to build and maintain the trust of citizens in how they collect and use data? What ethical principles need to be in place for the handling of data? How can data stewards ensure that everyone benefits equitably from access to data? How should data stewards engage citizens to build trust?

A preeminent panel representing the research, public and private sector will explore:

1. Principles - what are some common data ethics principles data stewards should follow?
2. Engagement methods - what are ideas of effective methods for engaging citizens to build trust?
3. Tools and guidance - to support data stewards

From public information in PDFs to open data, the transparency and open government movements are offering new sources to extract and tell stories for investigative reporting or data visualization.
 
Data journalism is helping explore, enhance and expose this datasets to their audiences, facilitating citizen  participation and control.
 
In this panel, we will share behind the scenes of international award winning projects presented by their own authors.

Cases in which journalism using technology, collaboration , teamwork and data science skills demonstrated they can exceed the normal scale of producing content and impact for change

Public contracting is often dominated by vested interests. The large sums of money, as well as the amount of discretion and opacity involved, make it government’s number one corruption risk. Supporting and sustaining political change that can effectively challenge this behaviour is tough, but essential for sustainable impact on citizens.

Open data has a key role to enable these reforms. This panel will discuss how open data can be used to leverage political change, and present the stories where bold individuals have used open contracting data to push for changes that challenge the status quo. We will also look at building up sustainable coalitions across silos and linked data such as beneficial ownership registers or spending information to sustain a level-playing field of information that can ultimately lead to change. 

The panel will evaluate the current status of implementation of open data in public procurement, show where promising progress and impact has been achieved, and how these results can scale. We’ll also try to understand why there are few prosecutions despite evident failures in public contracting such as in Quebec or Mexico.

We’ll give insight into strategies for leveraging open data to affect political change in key sectors of interest to citizens and discuss how public procurement  is conducted in 20 years and what a radical transformation could look like. The case studies the discussion will be based upon will include breaking up a price fixing cartel in school meals in Bogota, connecting planning, spending, contract data for busting overpriced contracts in Paraguay, improving costs of medicines in Argentina, as well as well as building a healthy environment for civil society to track contracts in Ukraine.

Mass releases of open data have not always produced the anticipated benefits. Many citizens do not even have the tools and skills to leverage the data effectively. Some experts argue that governments should start focusing on packaging high quality data in a way that makes it easier for citizens to sift through and understand. Experts from the southern and northern hemispheres will debate the future of open data with one side arguing that “open data is dead (or has lost its momentum)” and the other arguing for “long live open data”. The session will be moderated and the audience will be given an opportunity to wade in on the expert discussion.

This session will be a lively review of what is happening around the world on open data. The session will draw on the outcomes of the 7 Regional Sessions taking place during the conference. A focus will be placed on identification of shared learning and best practices.