A timeline of the Jakarta Lab at work

In action: Participants of the Data2Life. Life2Data. project learning to capture data’s impact through photography.

Since our soft launch in 2014, it’s been at the core of the Jakarta Lab to do our part in realising the potential of open data in order to reap its benefits for social change. Fast-forward to now, here’s a look back at some of the our achievements and highlights from the past two and half years, targeting to do just that:

In 2014, we laid the groundwork for the Jakarta Lab.

We built our networks, establishing our position as open data champions in the Southeast Asia region, and campaigning to increase open data awareness.

• Jakarta
  In our homebase of Jakarta, we worked with the Development Planning Agency to draft the legal foundation for the sustainable publication of data through the Governor’s Decree No. 181/2014. We also convened experts to co-author the Jakarta Open Data Manual, which is used as a guideline in publishing the Jakarta provincial government’s data in a standardised open format.

• Banda Aceh
  We supported the local government and civil society to together bridge open data supply and demand in the city. We focused on the education and health sectors, and after that, open data sustainability. To date, the City of Banda Aceh is committed to issue a city-wide regulation targeting a full proactive disclosure practice by 2017.

• La Trinidad, Kidapawan, and Alamada (Philippines), Solo and Yogyakarta (Indonesia)
  In various cities in Indonesia and the Philippines, we enabled four local civil society organisations to make effective use of publicly available budget and spending data. They monitored the government’s use of public funds, and in some cases, made significant impact to improve citizens’ lives through improved funds allocation.

• Regional (Southeast Asia)
  As the Web Foundation’s regional hub in Southeast Asia, we’re actively supporting the Open Data Barometer research by conducting in-depth analyses and reviews of open data policies and practices of a number of countries across the region.

 

2015 was an even busier year for us.

We further grew our partners and network, and we also wrapped up and kick-started a number of intense projects locally and regionally.

• Jakarta
  We partnered with one local watchdog organisation to explore ways to improve the disclosure of government procurement data and to build an open data portal dedicated to contracting data from Jakarta, launched in 2016.We collaborated with a research-based advisory group on an action research project to understand the use of citizen-generated data for better policy-making. The research was focused on reporting applications, Waze, PetaJakarta, and Qlue.

• Banyuwangi
  We developed and tested an approach that uses open data as a means of engaging civil society – together with local government – to contribute to bureaucracy reform.

• National level
  At the national level in Indonesia, we looked into making asset declaration data more accessible and useful. We looked into the Commission for Anti-Corruption’s disclosure practices, and provided actionable recommendation for improvement.We also worked together with the Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucracy Reform to launch an open data portal showing the evaluation results from the Bureaucratic Reform, Accountability, and Integrity Zones. This is the first such portal in Indonesia disclosing performance of government institutions – national sub-national and local.

• Indonesia and the Philippines
  The two countries we are most prominently working in within Southeast Asia saw progress from two points. First, our Open Data for Transparency project was wrapped up in late 2015. To date, we still see impact of this project through our local partner organisations and their continued efforts.We also conducted open contracting studies in both Indonesia and the Philippines. You could read more about our findings and recommendations through the research notes we published in our updated Resources section.

• Regional and more
  Through activities like the Regional Open Data Agenda-Setting Workshop and the Research Partners Workshop, we connected stakeholders from civil society, media and governments and more, and strengthened our role as lead convenor for open data initiatives in Southeast Asia.As part of the Web Foundation’s Open Data for Developing Countries project, we expanded our portfolio to include Malaysia and Nepal. We explored approaches to open data in constrained environments and how to utilise open data to bridge information gaps. Under this umbrella, we also have projects in the Philippines for connecting follow-the-money communities, and in Indonesia to understand the value of open data to move from smart to open cities.Oh, and we also had our official Jakarta Lab launch!

 

In 2016, we ventured into ‘new territories’.

Now that we’ve figured out our role in the open data sphere (at least more or less), we’re moving into new grounds by incubating and scaling projects, promoting a better marriage between open data and innovation, and documenting more impacts of open data.

• Banda Aceh
  Our project in Banda Aceh is going strong. Now, we’re looking into scaling it and ensuring the sustainability of open data practice through a city regulation for complete proactive disclosure practice, which we aim to be issued by 2017.

• National level
  Following our research from the past years, we’re now asking tougher questions: on from smart to open cities – do smart cities need to become open, or do cities need to be open first to be smart? And also, what is the role and value of open data intermediaries? (We’ve shared our findings at the Open Data Research Symposium.)This year we’ve also started our Innovating for Open Cities project. As part of it’s progress, we’ve now selected three partners and projects to incubate, mentor, and help implement – two in Jakarta and one in Banda Aceh – to wrap up in early 2017.

  Finally, through the Data2Life. Life2Data. project, we used photography as a medium to capture the impact of data on the everydays lives of Yogyakarta’s citizens. From our past experiences and reflected in this initiative, we’re realising that for open data to lead to real change, citizens must first understand how data affects their lives.

• Regional and more

We’re still working with our partners from the on-going Open Data for Developing Countries projects. Although the first phase for these projects will wrap up soon, we’re looking at opportunities to keep building on these great starts and expand our portfolio even further across the region.

To support this, we’re organising the Open Data Innovation Week this November, where we aim to co-create ‘open data innovation’ tools and methods together with innovators, hubs, government representatives and more from the Asia-Pacific region.

We’re also still deeply involved in the Open Data Barometer regional research. We also continue to hold capacity building trainings on understanding, analysing, and visualising open data. We have customised training modules and knowledge products published under an open license on our website.

These are only some of our highlights from the past two years. If this interests you and you’d like to know more about the Jakarta Lab, what we stand for, what we do,and how we do it, visit labs.webfoundation.org, or contact us at info@labs.webfoundation.org.

Follow us on Twitter @ODLabJkt to get the latest updates from us. We’re also at the International Open Data Conference 2016 – so if you’d like to meet, let’s do so!