[foundation-board] CEO Update 10 / 2016
Helen Turvey (King)
helen.turvey at shuttleworthfoundation.org
Wed Oct 19 09:14:05 UTC 2016
Thanks Pavel, great update as always.
I would like to intro Viderum team to: http://openoil.net/ - I think there
work would be of interest to each other, esp. now with contracts in the
extractives industry.
The work of the RTEI is really solid - esp. love the questions you pose,
both practical and policy. I do find the name complicated, as the right to
education is either there or not, if someone is fulfilling obligations is
another matter. I know it is explained further down the site one drills,
but wondered if it was deliberately so?
Fingers crossed for Omidyar news!
HT
On 18 October 2016 at 18:55, Karin Christiansen <karin at karinchristiansen.org
> wrote:
> 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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--
Helen Turvey (King)
CEO
Shuttleworth Foundation
website: www.shuttleworthfoundation.org
twitter: @helenturvey
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