[foundation-board] CEO Update 10 / 2016

Tue Oct 18 17:55:14 UTC 2016

Very helpful. Thank you.

Karin

On 18 Oct 2016 3:34 p.m., "Pavel Richter" <pavel.richter at okfn.org> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> please find below an overview of the highlights of the last month here at
> Open Knowledge International. As always, you can find the same text as a
> Google doc here
> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xtV7OXKbVeiK3IT3PIfiNCJNvpm7aLxd--kV-kQvJIs/edit?usp=sharing>
> .
>
> Cheers,
>
> Pavel
> Highlights from Tech/ Projects
>
>    -
>
>    There has been solid progress on the technical and methodological
>    aspects of the Global Open Data Index (GODI) platform. Data collection
>    for GODI 2016 is scheduled to start on the first week of November.
>    -
>
>    Work on the new tooling of the OpenSpending platform is ongoing while
>    the testing of the Fiscal Data Package specification continues after the
>    launch of the pilot with the Mexican Government.  Work is underway with
>    Open Knowledge Germany on a project to collect all EU subsidy data and get
>    it into OpenSpending, this is funded by Adessium
>    -
>
>    Regarding OpenTrials, the beta launch of the platform accompanied by a
>    hackathon in Berlin and an announcement occurred at the World Health Summit
>    on 10th October.
>    -
>
>    In Frictionless Data, the working group around the specs has kicked
>    off with great success, and with a commitment made to get all
>    specifications to v1 by end of 2016 with representatives across civic data,
>    academic, and commercial solutions providers. Work on the Registry has
>    begun and will be a key outcome of the project. Considerable interest was
>    generated from International Data Week conferences and discussions and
>    opportunities are underway with many new partners including the creation of
>    new working groups and new areas of research - the first likely to be in
>    Agricultural data
>    -
>
>       The FIWARE project came to an end in September following the update
>       of the platform to the the new CKAN release 2.6. The project ended with a
>       presentation from OKI on the work done as part of the project at CKANCon as
>       part of IODC. The CKAN platform will continue to be promoted by FIWARE and
>       supported by the community.
>       -
>
>       The Right to Education Index (RETI) has been published:
>       http://www.rtei.org/en/
>       -
>
>       Work on the IBP tracker continues, ad is due to be completed in
>       October
>       -
>
>    FutureTDM held its first high profile Workshop in Brussels with
>    presentations and a keynote by Julia Reda. The event was sponsored and
>    Chaired by the European Parliament Digital Agenda Intergroup.
>    <http://digitalagendaintergroup.eu/> Attendees included EU policy
>    shapers - advocacy organizations and representatives from the Parliament
>    Commission and Council - alongside the broader TDM community that we have
>    been engaging with for the past year. The FutureTDM project poster was
>    selected to be presented at various events such as the GTM2016, University
>    of Southampton IClick and at  RDA Plenary, where we also took part in the
>    IG session on education and formed a new working group on TDM.
>    OKFN representing FTDM gave a presentation at Digital Infrastructures
>    for Research.
>    -
>
>    Regarding School of Data (ScoDa), we're organising a special event
>    during Abrelatam in Colombia, early next month. The event will be about
>    connecting CSOs and newsrooms that are data driven for them to share common
>    challenges and lessons learned.
>    We organised a capacity building event in Madrid in partnership with
>    MediaLab Prado and Open Knowledge Spain which sought to teach journalists
>    data-skills. We also participated in IODC as Action Anchors, curating,
>    moderating and reporting on panels on the capacity building track. Our
>    contributions eventually made to the final report of the conference.
>    -
>
>    ROUTETOPA: Work started on piloting tools built by other partners in
>    the consortium
>
> Viderum Updates
>
>    -
>
>    On business: We've started delivery on the new project with Shell. We
>    also closed the renewal of the Birmingham hosting contract. While we still
>    haven't closed on HPE, talks are now under way with Energinet, the Danish
>    gas and electricity grid operator, to build an open data portal including
>    near-real-time energy consumption data. Developer team size has grown again
>    to 5 contractors in order to meet the demands of the ongoing projects.
>    -
>
>    On finance: As a result of increased business in the past two months,
>    Viderum's financial situation has improved somewhat. Once billings from the
>    Shell project turn into receipts (expected for November), things should
>    clear up significantly.
>    -
>
>    On transition: Yesterday, the last customer moved onto our
>    cloud-hosted infrastructure. With that, the transition project has come to
>    its end.
>
> Operations Update
>
>    -
>
>    Pensions has been boarded as planned
>    -
>
>    Charity application on going
>    -
>
>    The reversals has been completed to minimise corporation tax exposure
>    -
>
>    We currently have the ability to board key team members who are based
>    overseas; updates will presented at the next board meeting
>    -
>
>    Sanders reintegration to OKI planned for November.
>    -
>
>    The Year-End Accounts
>    <https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2rJgDegDOWdWGlNRGZ3RGttYVFfV3pTdHFiRlYzYThHZ0VJ/view?usp=sharing> has
>    been finalised. Regarding the attached Accounts; you will notice that Part
>    3 is highlighted in yellow; so far we have reduced our corporation Tax
>    exposure from £61,000 to £18,000.  However, Mark is convinced this
>    will come down, with the intention of zeroing it out or receiving an actual
>    Tax return from the Revenue. Unfortunately, these figures cannot be
>    confirmed to be 100% this week.
>    -
>
>    Please note that Buzzacott Auditors will be at the next Board Meeting
>    to present the Accounts.
>
> Funding Omidyar Network
>
> Pavel, accompanied by Mark and Karin made a presentation
> <https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/186qFxn04POwov2YWSgpqogeAbQsp6HDwwMkT4wwTYwA/edit?ts=57fb8d2f#slide=id.p>
> to the Investment Committee of the Omidyar Network on 28th September. We
> are expecting feedback on the grant in the next few weeks.
> Sigrid Rausing
>
> In addition to the 2016 grant report, we submitted a new proposal
> requesting for a 3year general core grant.
>
> StaffLive vacancies
>
> There are currently no open positions at OKI.
> New Staff
>
>    -
>
>    Serah Rono, based in Nairobi, Kenya filled our Developer Advocate
>    position. Serah comes to us from Code for Africa, and brings a wealth of
>    knowledge to the role. Serah is focused on ROUTETOPA, and assists on
>    Frictionless Data, and OK Labs.
>    -
>
>    Our Junior Designer position was filled by Ewelina Woloszyn. Ewelina
>    will work with our Senior Designer Sam Smith, who is now part time.
>    -
>
>    Shireen Kovoor joined OKI on 3rd October as our HR Manager. Shireen
>    has vast experience working in both the not-for-profit as well as the
>    commercial sectors, having previously worked for the SSAT(The Schools
>    Network), Heathrow Airport Holdings (formerly BAA), Balfour Beatty, Dubai
>    World Trade Centre and Tata Consultancy Services, in the UK, Dubai and
>    India.
>    -
>
>    Nicky Trijssenaar will be joining OKI next week as a Project Manager
>    for our NEXTGeoss project.
>
> Network
>
> We organized the Open Exchange for Social Change at the IODC16. It was
> successful and we got good end products from it, including discussions
> about open washing. Also, preparation for the Open Data Day with the
> community has started. Our last community call on the topic had 60
> participants.
>
> Regarding Research,  we co-anchored the research track at IODC and started
> a new project with CIVICUS on the DataShift  project.
> AOB
>
> The next in-person meeting of the Board is on 9th November, 2016 at
> 5:30pm. The venue is Canonical.
>
> OKI’s Autumn  Summit is taking place on 21-23 November, 2016 in
> Thessaloniki, Greece.
>
> I will send the next CEO Update in the middle of December. Please do give
> feedback on these reports, so that I can provide you with the information
> that you require.
> What I have been thinking about / what’s concerning me this month
>
> A lot of time and effort went into the presentation for the Omidyar
> Network investment committee. We will hear from them any time soon, I hope.
>
> A real highlight was the International Open Data Conference in Madrid. I
> am usually not a big fan of these large conferences and find them not too
> helpful for me. But in Madrid it was different. This time, I found the
> panels very good, I found the networking very helpful (especially at the
> Omidyar meetup on Monday and Tuesday), and it was great to meet with a
> large part of our staff and see them “in action”.
>
> One thing that I am looking forward to is the project management training
> that all our project managers are undergoing in October in London. We are
> investing a lot of money and effort in this, but I am confident that we
> will see improved collaboration and planning coming to our projects.
>
> October and November are very intense, in terms of conferences and travel,
> and also for fundraising. But I found the last month to be very productive
> and interesting, and I really like it that talking about our new strategy,
> I get good feedback from people who know OKI for a long time.
>
> --
> Kind regards
>
> Pavel Richter
> CEO
> Open Knowledge International
>
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