By Pierre Chrzanowski, Open Data Specialist at OpenDRI. Co-author: Grace Doherty, Geospatial Consultant at OpenDRI. A few months ago, OpenDRI released the beta version of the OpenDRI Index, a new tool to track and measure the availability of disaster risk data at country level. Today, we are pleased to publish the Global Datasets page, a preliminary list of worldwide or… Read more »
Tag: Open Data Movement
The Rise of Local Mapping Communities
In the past few years, there has been a meteoric rise of locally organized OpenStreetMap communities in developing countries working to improve the map in service of sustainable development activities.
ODI and GODAN ask for help finding valuable data for agriculture
Contribute to their crowd sourced list of different types, sources and examples of data related to agriculture to help develop a better understanding of data in the sector.
We Need Open Data to Fight Climate Change
“We’re going to need more and better data to measure and track progress against global climate change targets, including information on temperature changes, mapping deforestation and biodiversity in real time and cataloguing changes to flood plains as oceans rise. Making this data open by design could be the secret ingredient that accelerates progress.”
Leading science groups urge global accord on Open Data in a Big Data World
A group of four major international science organisations – including ISSC – have today called for global endorsement of an accord to help assure open access to volumes of “big data” that increasingly are the basis of research and policy-making.
The losing battle against corruption: why open data is important for Africa
In this article Irene Ikomu discusses how transparency through open data has the potential to eradicate corruption in Africa, but in order for that to happen the whole continent has to buy in.
What are the impacts of non-open licenses?
The ODI explains why the decision about which license to use is one of the most important steps in publishing a dataset.
The economic impact of open data: what do we already know?
“Open data fuels economic growth. Many believe in the theory and ask for the proof. A new report by Nesta and the ODI adds to the evidence of the impact of open data. The report’s analysis, undertaken by PwC, examines the effects of the Open Data Challenge Series (ODCS) and predicts the programme will result in a potential 10x return (£10 for every £1 invested over three years), generating up to £10.8m for the UK economy.”
More voices mean smarter cities
Creating mechanisms for participation in urban planning can be as traditional as institutionalizing town meetings on zoning issues or as innovative as deploying digital platforms for community mapping. For instance, a number of initiatives, such as the Open Cities Project, illustrate the ways in which citizens can help contribute information to the policymaking process.
Open Cities draws on inputs from a range of groups to “create usable information through community mapping techniques, to build applications and tools that inform decision making, and to develop the networks of trust and social capital necessary for these efforts to become sustainable.” The project informs World Bank investment planning on addressing urban challenges and disaster risk in pilot cities in South Asia.
How to: convert XML or JSON into spreadsheets using Open Refine
One of the most useful applications of the data cleaning tool Open Refine (formerly Google Refine) is converting XML and JSON files into spreadsheets that you can interrogate in Excel…
Sustainable Development Goals and Open Data
The United Nations (UN) has developed a set of action-oriented goals to achieve global sustainable development by 2030 and has included the importance of open data in the context of improving resilience to disasters.
Want a ‘Data Revolution’? Then listen to what citizens really want
“Why are the #OpenData and #CivicTech movements repeating all the old mistakes about top-down development? That was the major question tackled at a community skills day during the African Open Data Conference in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, between September 2-5…”
Can Mapping Help Increase Disaster Resilience?
According to Marc Forni of The World Bank, they can. Find out how the Open Cities project became a key platform for building resilience in this blog post from November 2014.
Computer Programmers Join the “Code for Resilience” Hackathon to Enhance Vietnam’s Resilience to Natural Disasters
“The Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) and the World Bank, in collaboration with HATCH! PROGRAM, a leading entrepreneur community and social incubator in Vietnam, will host the global event: “Hackathon Code For Resilience” in Vietnam, with support from the Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.”
TechRepublic highlights OpenDRI’s “excellent new field guide”
In a TechRepublic article, Alex Howard gives the Open Data for Resilience Initiative Field Guide a shout out while discussing how releasing open data supports the United States federal government’s goal of improving community resilience against climate change and primes the pump for meaningful reuse by tech giants.