[OpenSpending] Data Expedition on December 7: Investigate the Extractive Industries of Nigeria

[Anders Pedersen]

Hi all, 

Who operates the often poisonous wells in the Niger Delta? How does the 
money flow between the contractors running the oil fields and the 
government?

Over at School of Data we are running a Data Expedition on December 7 to *Investigate 
the Extractive Industries of Nigeria.*

Register for free<https://docs.google.com/a/okfn.org/forms/d/1p-3Bqr3MkIQZ_VoQqed7OKoAfmoYZffZaJ32HdLHNRE/viewform>

*The problem: Companies hide in plain sight*

Data on the extractives industry is increasingly going public, from EITI<http://eiti.org/>'s 
information about money flows from companies to governments to the UK's 
decision to make its register of the beneficial owners of private companies 
public<http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/31/public-register-firms-secret-owners-cameron>
 in the future. As more information about the oil, gas and mining 
industries makes it into the public domain, more people living in 
resource-rich countries have the potential to benefit. Information 
transparency can lead to greater public scrutiny of these industries that 
affect so many lives. Databases such as OpenCorporates<http://opencorporates.com/>
 are rapidly expanding and making companies involved in extractives and 
other industries easier to trace. Meanwhile, other data published in local 
media or tucked away in companies' annual reports has seemingly been hiding 
in plain sight for years.

*What are we going to do?*
We want to begin cracking this data open and analysing it to facilitate 
investigations by journalists, organisations, activists and governments who 
all need to know how extractives impact people’s lives. In collaboration 
with OpenOil <http://openoil.net/>, School of Data will bring together 
those with an interest in learning to work with data to help tackle some of 
the biggest issues in the extractive industries today, with a focus on 
Nigeria. The Data Expedition will complement our recently launched Follow 
the Money network <http://followthemoney.net/>, which pushes for the 
transparency needed to help citizens around the world use information about 
public money to hold decision-makers to account.

*What will you learn?*
- Network analysis: Investigate the corporate supply chain in Nigeria's oil 
industry by using networks to see who is connected to whom
- Corporate research: Cut through generic names like “Shell” and “Exxon” to 
identify the specific corporate vehicles responsible for activities in 
places such as the Niger Delta
- Mapping: Work with maps of geo-coded oil spills, company license areas 
and other data to draw connections that might not be apparent in text-based 
media
- Web-scraping: Find company data and establish leads for other 
investigations related to the oil industry by scraping the web

You can find the full blog post over at School of Data here<http://schoolofdata.org/2013/11/15/data-expedition-december-7-investigate-the-extractive-industries-of-nigeria/>. 
Hope to see you for the investigation! 

Best,
Anders

-- 


*Anders PedersenCommunity Coordinator  |  skype: anpehej  |  @anpe 
<https://twitter.com/>The Open Knowledge Foundation 
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