[open-development] talks/events from the Global South during OKFestival?

Thu Jul 17 14:28:07 UTC 2014

Dear OKfest/OKFN friends,

Re: OKFN in the Global South and "...  challenges facing open knowledge advocates in places where critical mass of like-minded people is far from achieved and where the local context may very well be hostile" 

As a passionate advocate of the need to foster the culture of 'open knowledge' particularly in hostile / crisis regions, I totally agree with Rayna's comment on this. It's unfortunate (and personally, somewhat dismaying) that the OKFN for the second time in a row (Geneva and now Berlin) rejected proposals on the need, value and challenges of 'open knowledge in post-conflict development' in South Sudan. As a 'new' country, now embroiled in a dangerous internal conflict, the tenets of open knowledge are of vital importance in helping to provide alternative visions of 'development', open governance, and international collaboration. Our proposals have been to bring prominent, yet emergent supporters and advocates of open knowledge from South Sudan (as well as other countries) including politicians, policy makers and activists to the OK events - in order to meet the broad and diverse 'OK community', such that these guests may bring the knowledge, contacts and networks gained at the event back home. As such we see (or at least, we saw) a specific strategic value in power and prominence of OKFN's message in helping define the path that this new state needs to take as it builds itself up. For our OKfest Berlin proposal, we went through immense bureaucratic and financial efforts over numerous months to secure the travel and participation of one of the country's leading academic researchers on the development of (open) civil society constructs in South Sudan. Prof. Leben Nelson Moro from the Center for Peace and Development Studies at the University of Juba, managed to make it to Berlin, but as the proposal was rejected (with no particular explanation offered) the opportunity to make these formal linkages that could indeed be change makers in South Sudan, has again been lost. 

Nevertheless, after a panel discussion last week hosted by the Germany Africa Foundation on the issue of hate speech and directed incitement to violence via social media in gteh current conflict (#DefyHateNow) that also featured Sieta Adheu Majok, the co-founder of the 'Talk of Juba' platform, Prof. Moro will be speaking again this evening at 19.30 at the ThoughtWorks Werkstatt. I encourage the visiting open development advocates who are interested in the complexity and challenges faced by a country such as South Sudan to attend and I'm sure that Prof. Moro will also be extremely interested to hear about your work as well.

South Sudan: #DeepDive
featuring
Prof. Leben Nelson Moro
Center for Peace and Development Studies
, University of Juba, South Sudan

At a time framed by the extremes of humanitarian crisis, immense pressures on equitable development and great uncertainty in its future political path South Sudan: #DeepDive is a unique opportunity to have an in-depth presentation on the economic situation on the ground in the country’s predominantly rural regions, as well as in its rapidly growing cities. Prof. Moro, who teaches in the areas of development, conflict, forced migration and humanitarian affairs will introduce the major players and discuss the conditions of the very heterogenous population of “Africa’s youngest country”.

19.30 CEST (Berlin GMT+2) 
Thursday, July 17, 2014
ThoughtWorks Werkstatt
Mülhauserstr. 6. (Hofgebäude 1. OG)
Berlin, Germany
https://www.facebook.com/events/864360103630793/

South Sudan: #DeepDive is hosted by Dmytri Kleiner and Baruch Gottlieb from the ThoughtWorks Werkstatt in Berlin, in collaboration with r0g_agency for open culture and critical transformation.

This event will also be streamed live! For more info, and to follow live:
http://r0g-media.org/2014/07/15/south-sudan-deep-dive/

Greetings, 

Stephen

On 14.07.2014, at 19:24, Rayna wrote:
> Hey everyone,
> 
> Great initiatives :)
> 
> Do not forget to join in tomorrow from 1pm onward for the community summit: one of the topics that have come up as important is rooting up more OKFN in the Global South, that is what challenges face open knowledge advocates in places where critical mass of like-minded people is far from achieved and where the local context may very well be hostile. In addition, another crucial topic to address is transmission of expertise within the community, thus streghtening It even more.
> 
> Looking forward to meeting you all :)
> 
> Rayna
> 
> P. S. Brevity and typos courtesy of HTC 
> Le 14 juil. 2014 19:13, "Pernilla Näsfors" <pernillan at gmail.com> a écrit :
> Dear Tom and all other OKFest:ers, 
> 
> Thanks for taking the initiative to put together a list of open development related sessions during OKFest! I actually started doing the same thing, but for the whole week, so I have listed all the OpenDev side events I am aware of on https://hackpad.com/OpenDev-Events-during-OKFest14-Week-UnlSUFzsEDp. I hadn't got around listing individual sessions for the festival itself though, so let's use your pad for that! Feel free to add things to "my" pad too if you are aware of other events that I haven't listed yet. 
> 
> By the way, perhaps those interested could gather and go somewhere for beers after the Open Knowledge Fair tomorrow evening? One of the people who knows Berlin might be able to suggest a place? 
> 
> Looking forward to meeting you all! 
> 
> // Pernilla
> 
> 
> --
> Pernilla Näsfors
> http://twitter.com/pernillan
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Jul 14, 2014 at 5:23 PM, Everton Zanella Alvarenga <tom at okfn.org.br> wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> does someone here know if there will be good speeches/events from/organized by people from the Global South?
> 
> I made a list using the filter at the event programme:
> 
> https://pad.okfn.org/p/okfestival-opendevelopment
> 
> and there are about 8 events during OKFestival. What would you suggest? Please, if you may add in the pad above, that'd be great! It's difficult to find with such a rich programme. :)
> 
> Is someone here from the local Open Knowledge groups from Latina America, Asia and Africa speaking? (I know from Brazil we'll have Gisele Craveiro and Alexandre Abdo speaking, but I have no idea from other countries)
> 
> By the way, it'd be great to see some figures about the attendees of the event. For instance, I discovered today there are 33 Brazilians subscribed (26 from the network I am aware of <https://pad.okfn.org/p/okfestival-okbr>). It'd be great to have all these numbers, from attendees to speakers.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Tom
> 
> -- 
> Everton Zanella Alvarenga (also Tom)
> Open Knowledge Brasil - Rede pelo Conhecimento Livre
> http://br.okfn.org
> 
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South Sudan Deep Dive 
feat. Prof. Leben Nelson Moro 19.30 Berlin (GMT+2) July 17, 2014 
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