[open-government] Web Foundation Announces New Project to Assess Potential of Creating Open Government Data Initiatives in Chile, Ghana and Turkey

Wed Aug 11 14:03:18 UTC 2010

Many thanks Craig! You *just* beat me to it. Had link queued up in a
tab to post to the list! ;-)

Very much look forward to following progress on this. Would be most
grateful for any status updates from your end -- and if you could
invite relevant folks to this list/group?

All the best,

Jonathan

2010/8/11 Craig Heintzman <craig at webfoundation.org>:
> FYI - Steve Bratt, CEO of the World Wide Web Foundation (founded in 2009 by
> Tim Berners-Lee) just announced moving forward with a project to assess the
> potential of creating open government data initiatives in Chile, Ghana, and
> Turkey -- the first step of what we hope to be a global initiative focusing
> on low- and middle-income countries. Link and text copied below.
> Craig
>
> -------------------------
> http://www.webfoundation.org/2010/08/potential-of-open-government-data-in-chile-ghana-and-turkey/
>
> Within less than a year, the United Kingdom and United States have put
> hundreds of thousands of rich datasets on the Web in machine readable
> formats. Thousands of applications have been built — the vast majority
> without taxpayers’ money — by civic hackers to analyze, mash-up, and map
> these data. Potential benefits of an Open Government Data (OGD) practice
> include new services, new insights, increased citizen participation, new
> businesses and better governance. Though other countries, provinces and
> cities are exploring OGD, there has been little activity in low and middle
> income countries (see map at left). Given the potential benefits and
> reasonable costs, it is importance to assess how relevant an OGD initiative
> might be in these countries as well.
>
> The World Wide Web Foundation, with the our partner Fundacion (CTIC), is
> taking the first steps in this direction.   We are starting a new project to
> conduct an assessment of the feasibility and potential of an OGD program in
> three diverse countries — Chile, Ghana and Turkey.  The bottom line
> questions are:  Is the country ready to engage in an OGD initiative?  If so,
> what support might they need?  If not, why not, and what lesson can we take
> away from this assessment?
>
> The project originated in response to a call for proposals from the
> Transparency and Accountability Initiative:  a donor collaborative that
> includes the Ford Foundation, Hivos, theInternational Budget Partnership,
> the Omidyar Network, the Open Society Institute, the Revenue Watch
> Institute, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The funding for
> this project originates from the Omidyar Network and the Open Society
> Institute.  The project runs in parallel to a similar feasibility study
> focusing on India, also support by the Transparency and Accountability
> Initiative, and run by the Centre for Internet and Society.
>
> Our work is starting with the development a new methodology for assessing
> OGD readiness, based on our experience and an excellent paper commissioned
> by the Transparency and Accountability Initiative and written by Becky
> Hogge from earlier this year. We will then conduct research through visits
> to each country, Web studies, and phone and email interviews to complete the
> assessment by the end of October. As Tim Berners-Lee said in his interview
> with Becky, “It has to start at the top, it has to start in the middle and
> it has to start at the bottom.” In other words, we must talk with people
> from the highest levels of government, the public administration officials
> who collect and care for data, and the people who will leverage the data to
> create new applications. And we will do so during this study. The results
> should be available before the end of this year.
>
> The Web Foundation is committed to supporting efforts around OGD in
> individual countries, and as a emerging movement around the world. This is
> evidenced by the work of Web Foundation Directors Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel
> Shadbolt in the UK and US, the W3C Brazil Office in their country, and W3C’s
> eGovernment Interest Group, as well as work to built capacity in the
> Caribbean. If you want to learn more, please contact me or Stephane Boyera.
>
> About World Wide Web Foundation
>
> World Wide Web Foundation leads transformative programs to advance the Web
> as a medium that empowers people to bring about positive change. Created
> under a seed grant from the John S and James L Knight Foundation, the Web
> Foundation brings together business leaders, technology innovators,
> academia, government, NGOs, experts, developers and end users to tackle
> challenges that, like the Web, are global in scale. By funding education,
> outreach, research and the next generation of Web technologies, Web
> Foundation strives to enable all people to share knowledge, access services,
> conduct commerce, participate in good governance and communicate in creative
> ways. Web Foundation is a registered tax exempt, public charity in
> Switzerland and the United States.
>
> --
> Craig Heintzman
> World Wide Web Foundation
> M: +1.857.756.8008
> O: +1.617.391.0251
> W: webfoundation.org
>
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>
>

-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://blog.okfn.org

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