[OKFN-AU] OKFN Au - Information and Roadmap

Tue Oct 2 02:25:14 UTC 2012

OKFN Au – Information & Roadmap

Welcome to the Australian chapter of the Open Knowledge Foundation Network – OKFN Au.

OKFN Au is a community initiative to create a bridge between the many and varied open knowledge communities in Australia, including hackers<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_%28hobbyist%29>, data journalists, scientists, Gov 2.0 and open data peeps, knowledge and change management enthusiasts and civil society. Please browse the site, check out the list of open knowledge communities<http://au.okfn.org/communities> in Australia, send us details about your group to add to the network on the community mailing list at http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/okfn-au/, check out the community calendar and get involved [http://au.okfn.org/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif]

OKFN<http://okfn.org/> is a global community network, established originally in the UK. It brings together people interested and active in opening up and using data to create and share knowledge.

The Open Knowledge Foundation is dedicated to promoting the creation, sharing and application of Open Knowledge in the Digital Age.

The goal of an Australian chapter could be to support, promote and bring together the active and diverse open knowledge communities in Australia. We have some well established tech communities, research groups, open government communities, emerging data journo communities and loads more that could all benefit through being connected to each other, even if just peripherally. It makes it easier to understand the breadth and skills of our community which, in turn, makes it easier to connect with each other and collaborate on common goals or projects.

Best of all OKFN Au will make it easier for newcomers to this space to identify a group or groups in our community that they can join and contribute to, both nationally and internationally.

It is very early days and generally speaking, most people will work and play within their groups and continue life as usual, but OKFN Au could be thought of like an upside down umbrella to support the broader community. Through some initial discussions, we’ve come up with some potential functions of OKFN Au and would love your feedback about what would (or wouldn’t) be useful for you and your community:

 *   promotion of community groups and events – listing of the various groups, aggregated calendar
 *   some flagship events for cross community goodness – an annual Aus OKFestival including GovCamp, GovUX, GovHack and other community events including themes around science, data journalism, digital humanities & open government
 *   knowledge sharing – through a group blog and global and local mailing lists, encouraging cross posting of content from the communities. A monthly online OKFN Au online chat could be useful for identifying upcoming events, opportunities to work together, promoting good work throughout the community, and for anyone throughout the extended community to get involved in OKFN Au itself
 *   community collaboration – through mailing lists, wikis and other tools, facilitating groups to reach out to each other to tap into a broad range of skills for awesome community projects
 *   possible resources and services to support community activities – insurances, small grants for pizza and beer, web tools, legal, etc
 *   anything else the community needs to be awesome.

Some of these ideas would require the set up of an organisation, some could be achieved through a casual network of volunteers. We would like to grow this idea organically over the coming 12 months in response to the needs of the community so do get involved and let us know what you think on the OKFN Au mailing list<http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-au>!

Pia and the OKFN Au Working Group<http://au.okfn.org/working-group>

Please note that OKFN Au is not envisioned to be a lobbying organisation, but rather a group focused on open knowledge community development and growth in Australia.
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