[okfn-za] (no subject)

[Justin Arenstein]

Hi everyone.

I'm a virtual member of the OKFN Cape Town chapter, and am the publisher at AENS (which is a social justice news agency that works for everyone from M&G to DailySun). I also help Google and various media / civil society organisations with their open data & digital strategies.

Anyhow, as Adi says, we want to find more engaging and meaningful ways for ordinary people to engage with government budgets. We're thinking about drawing on things like the US-focused http://datavizchallenge.org/viz/56 and the OKFN's own DailyBread version at http://wheredoesmymoneygo.org/dailybread.html, perhaps with the ability to compare your qcity's spending against those of other cities, similar to this http://countysinrankings.org/.

Because we're not reinventing the wheel, we can have some real fun with this project. And, because we're pulling in civil society and media partners, we expect whatever we create to have a real world impact -- even if it is just to spark debate.

So, as Adi says, let's get creative and make a difference.

Cheers,
Justin



Sent from my iPad

On 19 Apr 2012, at 5:48 PM, Adi Eyal <adi at burgercom.co.za> wrote:

> Hi All
> 
> Plans are currently being hatched for the start of a collaboration
> between the Open Democracy Advice Centre, the African Eye News Service
> and (hopefully) the Cape Town chapter of the Open Knowledge
> Foundation.
> 
> Government budgets, especially at the municipal level do their best to
> attract little interest from the citizens who fund them. As
> comprehensive as the Cape Town budget website is
> (http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/budget/Pages/default.aspx) - I actually
> have no interest in reading through what looks like thousands of pages
> of really boring text peppered with tables. I know that somewhere in
> those documents lie stories that could explain to me what the city is
> doing for its poor, disabled, disenfranchised not mention uptight
> middle-classed folk like myself. I just can't bring myself to curl
> around one of those bad boy documents (e.g.
> http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/Budget/Documents/2011-12%20Final%20Main/1112Budget_ForApprovalAtCouncil_May11_inclMayorRecom.pdf).
> 
> Perhaps there's another way? What if we could bring together a group
> of geeks, graphics people, a peppering of civil society organisations
> and a smattering of journalists to find those stories and present them
> to everyday people? We're not sure what the best format is yet, an
> Infographic, a mobile application, a website, a vomputer game - who
> knows? What we need is volunteers who have an interest in taking this
> forward providing whatever skills they have to offer. If you can code
> - bring a keyboard - if you can draw bring a pencil. If all you can do
> is cheer - bring your pom poms!
> 
> The partnership introduced above is looking at picking stories from
> the budgets of the City of Cape Town and/or the Western Cape
> Government as well as Mbombela Local Municipality and the Mpumalanga
> government. If there is any interest in expanding the number of local
> or regional governments then we're all ears.
> 
> To exhort you to action - I've found a good video on why budgets are
> important and why you should care
> http://www.youtube.com/v/7d-mSv0eSOE
> 
> For now - all we need from you is an expression of interest and a
> suggestion for what you can bring to the party. As a group, we'll
> brainstorm around how to turn this grain of an idea into a finished
> product.
> 
> Looking forward to our first project as a community.
> 
> -- 
> Adi Eyal
> phone: +27 78 014 2469
> skype: adieyalcas
> 
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