The OKFN is a not-for-profit organisation =96 all our c= ommunity services are provided openly and for free. We rely on the generosi= ty of our institutional and individual supporters =96 and we need your help= now more than ever. Please visit http://okfn.org/support/ to find out more about becoming = an Open Knowledge Foundation supporter.

You can read the nice shiny version of this Newsletter = over on the blog=A0- with pictures and stuf= f!

OK Festival!!

It's literally days away now, and we can barely bel= ieve how fast it's come around! Our bags are packed, and we're just= about ready - are you? With over 600 people registered, OKFest is set to b= e the world's biggest ever open knowledge event. In an era of global di= gital communications, significant benefits are gained in all sectors of the= society by opening up knowledge, including science, culture, governance an= d economy. Next week will reveal what can happen when hundreds of community= -builders, developers, scientists, academics, government and civil society = representatives, teachers, students and open data experts come together to = build new things and provoke positive change. It is a crucial moment in the= open knowledge movement. Here's a little round up of what to expect...=

Over 13 different topic streams, from =93Transp= arency and Accountability=94 to =93Openness in Sustainability=94 - you can = get all the details through the online Festival Schedule
Prestigious and inspiring keynote speakers, from Hans Rosling to Anneli J= =E4=E4tteenm=E4ki to Farida Vis to Carl-Christian Buhr to Carlos Rossel
Crowdsourced evening events including an Open Sauna=A0evening, a Helsinki barhop, a serie= s of Thematic Dinners based on the Harvard Berkman Centre model, and loads = of other stuff to surprise and delight!=A0
Free Public Hackathons and Calls for Participation, including a News App Hackday=A0hosed by Helsingin Sanomat, Take Action lightning t= alks=A0on gender equality and diversity hosted by Wikimedia, a Green Hackathon=A0hosted by us, and much, much more!

If you've (somehow) missed out on the ex= citement until now, you have until September 16th to grab the last rema= ining tickets. We really can't wait to see you there!

(Some of) What we've been up to...=

OKFN Labs

= OKFN Labs=A0is our (= fairly) new home for experimental and prototype projects, and is generally = a very cool place to hang out. Incorporating some of our more long term end= eavours like Annotator= =A0and YourTopia, it's a veritable hotbed of new activity and development. One of our = favourite projects at the moment is PyBossa, a free, open-source crowd-sourcing and micro-taski= ng platform. It enables people to create and run projects that utilise onli= ne assistance in performing tasks that require human cognition such as imag= e classification, transcription, geocoding and more. Get involved!

Another nice little product was our Ending Secrecy=A0work with Global Witness, creatin= g visualisations to explain why global transparency rules matter. And if yo= u'd like to join in with our Labs work, why not come to a Labs Sprint? The first will be focused on energy data, in Berlin from the= 1st-8th October - do come along!

OKFN=A0in India

= The lovely Laura and Lucy from the OKFN community team went on a visit to I= ndia (lucky for some!), sharing stories and experiences with the rapidly ex= panding open data movement over there. You can read about their journey on = the OKF blog, as they travelled from the Fifth Elephant Conference in Bangalore, onto Chennai=A0where they hooked up with locals= Transparent Chennai, then organised their own workshop in Mumbai,= =A0and finally arrived in Delhi, the "policy capital" of= India. Phew!

Open Bibliography

The O= pen Bibliography crew have been hard at work as ever, and July saw our bigg= est ever celebration of Open Bibliographic Data, BiblioHack. Work was= begun on a "Bibliographic Toolkit," which would bring together O= pen Knowledge Foundation projects like TEXTUS=A0and BibServer=A0with other tools available on the web. In Aug= ust, the JISC Open Biblio 2 project was brought to a successful conclusion,= after second year of development and advocacy - you can read the full repo= rt here. Keep up to date with all our bibli= ographic work on the W= orking Group homepage.

And some new members of the family...

Our new Data Protocols=A0projec= t was launched, a community-driven effort to develop simple, light-weight p= rotocols and formats for distributed and collaborative work with data.
The Linked = Open Vocabularies=A0project officially joined the Open Knowledge Founda= tion family, providing single-stop access to the Vocabulary Commons ecosyst= em. =A0
And we got some real-life new members, in the shape of=A0Jane Silber and Gavin= Starks, who have joined the OKFN Board!

=A0

(A bit of) What you've b= een up to...

=A0

And of course, you lot have bee= n super busy too! Here are a few of your news highlights from the blog:

OpenDataMX=A0saw the production of some great new work in j= ust 36 hours, based on public sector data.=A0
The Declaration on Parliamentary Openness=A0was la= unched by the National Democratic Institute to promote legislative openness= .=A0
The first = Open Data and Democracy Initiative Hackathon=A0took place in Cape Town,= South Africa, with results suggesting a bright future for the Open Data mo= vement over there. =A0
We heard about Elva, a new crowdsourcing tool to help= improve the security of communities in the turbulent Shida Kartli region o= f Georgia.
=A0Creative Commons brought out a new set of licenses, v4.0, which aim to bett= er meet the needs of open data publishers and users.=A0
And Open Data Researc= h are offering $25-75,000 to fund research=A0projects into the impact o= f open data initiatives in developing countries.=A0

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Musings

=A0=

In case you missed it, here's some of the stuff we've be= en thinking about on the blog - do get in touch if you have thoughts to share!

Rufus Pollock wrote a two part piece on = "Managing Expectations", available here=A0and here, looking at the li= mitations of open data and the strategies necessary to ensure it fulfills i= ts potential, socially, culturally and economically.=A0
While Jonathan Gray's post, "Science, D= ata and the Public"=A0(also published by the Guardian), explored t= he likely impact of developing EC policy on access to scientific informatio= n on science and public engagement with science.=A0

Dates for your diary

There is life beyond OKFest - lots of it! Here are a few key dat= es for your diaries, and remember to check Meetups=A0for details of O= KFN stuff in your area

OKFN Energy Lab Sprint, 1st-8th Octo= ber, Berlin
OpenStree= tMap Conference, 19th-20th October, Edinburgh
The Big Clean, 3rd November, Prague and everywhere

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