Expanding Open Data Culture

Image generated by the ‘Mapping Wikipedia’ project, Oxford Internet Institute

We’re exploring new ways to strengthen a culture of open data in Southeast Asia

Today, we’re excited to announce that the Web Foundation’s Open Data Lab Jakarta is partnering with the Jakarta-based Goethe-Institut Indonesien, the German cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany. We will be cooperating on two new projects aimed at forging and strengthening a culture of open data: across Indonesia and the wider Southeast Asia region.

Data2Life. Life2Data.: Photography, Data, and Everyday Reality.

Data permeates and impacts every sphere of our society – even if much of the public discourse still revolves around abstract questions centred on the role of technology in the production and application of data, open data is far more than just a technical concept and needs to be better understood and shared. Through the “Data2Life. Life2Data.” project, we aim to create a rich photographic record of open data in use, and to link complex concepts into everyday realities.

Data2Life.

In this component of the project, we will use photography to bring to life how different groups – from government officials to citizens – produce, translate and consume data. From online platforms and mobile apps to community notice boards and newspapers, data flows through a wide array of channels to reach and influence people in different ways. We believe that capturing and understanding this process will help to show the potential and challenges of working with open data.

Life2Data.

In parallel to capturing the data process, we also want to show how data actually represents the realities people face everyday. For example, the condition of schools, the existence of roads and bridges and the status of medical supplies, while contained as data in government inventories, can tell visual narratives of the data in action and use. Following this trail, photographs can speak about the quality of the data or the lack of it and will serve as external validation tools of government-produced and published datasets.
The “Data2Life. Life2Data.” project will be launched through a traveling exhibit starting in Yogyakarta, Indonesia this September 2016. You can also view the photographs and creative narratives as an exhibit in the International Open Data Conference to be held in Madrid, Spain, this October. Finally, we will also showcase the project’s results in Jakarta, Indonesia, as part of the Open Data Innovation Week happening this November (see details below).

Open Data Innovation Week

Over the past few years, open data has seen significant progress in Indonesia and across Southeast Asia, with more governments opening data for public perusal and consumption and civil society becoming knowledgeable about and engaging with the data. Moreover, there’s been a large growth in initiatives, events and organisations focused on advocating for and experimenting with open data to foster a more open, responsive and inclusive government. Arm-in-arm with this, there’s also an increasing number of complex public policy challenges being tackled by new forms of data-driven approaches and tools.

To contribute to this progress, we’re planning the Open Data Innovation Week—an event that will take place in Jakarta from the 22nd to the 25th of November 2016. Through this, we aim to bring together cross-sectoral, multicultural communities to share, discuss and build a toolbox of methods and tools for improving the design, practice and implementation of open data projects.

The event will contribute to fostering a ‘culture of data’ in the region by connecting actors active in the tech and data space. Together with this diverse group of experts from across the Southeast Asia region, we will jointly explore and develop the methods and tools, as well as strategies and tactics, that can be applied to improve the ways open data is put to use to realise sustainable impact. We will couple this with strengthening the capacity of organisations and individuals to apply them, ensuring that the tools are not only practical and useful, but will also largely contribute to the work of the event participants.
In the next weeks, we will hold an open Call for Tools where interested parties can apply to be part of the event. We will publish the open call in the Jakarta Lab’s blog and Goethe-Institut Indonesien’s calendar of events, so stay tuned for more details!

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For more information about Goethe-Institut Indonesia and their activities, visit www.goethe.de. For any inquiries about the “Data2Life. Life2Data.” project, the Open Data Innovation Week event or the Open Data Lab Jakarta, you can contact us at info@labs.webfoundation.org or send us a message via Twitter @ODLabJkt!

Stay updated on the projects by following @ODLabJkt and @GI_Indonesien on Twitter.