You can participate in the Open Development Camp on Data and Collaboration to improve international development. On Friday July 10, participants came from far and wide bringing new approaches and tools for gathering and sharing data and collaborating to increase development effectiveness. The best thing about the Open Development Camp is that the online discussion is ongoing--Please join the online community today.
The Global Development Commons at USAID co-sponsored the Open Development Camp event with Development Gateway, Forum One Communications, AidInfo, and host The World Bank.
The Global Development Commons team specifically requests input on achieving its goals at USAID to enage new crowds to collaborate and innovate for better international development results. Contribute your ideas and experiences to a new wiki being created out of the ideas and discussions at the Open Development Camp.
The day kicked off with inspirational opening remarks from Owen Barder of AidInfo who referred participants to Amartya Sen's reminder that no country with a free press has had a famine. "You can't eat information. But you can use it to change your life."
Some of the great moments included:
1. A breakout discussion during the first session on Democratizing Data led by Sean Gorman. Great ideas that were discussed included:
- The value of citizen reporting vs. NGOs and Governments
- The responsibilitiy of Mayors, Governors, and Federal Govs to make raw data available (eg: Vivek Kundra and Data.gov)
- The initiative in the District of Columbia that made data available and then asked for applications to use it "Apps for Democracy" where a $50,000 prize investment generated $200 million worth of applications
- The potential for open and participatory budgeting processes
- "The right unit is the city and the right actor is the Mayor" cities in Brazil and the Philippines have had success with open budgeting: its harder to demand data at a national level then at a local level, but mayors often don't have the necessary resources to make data available
- There is money to be made in data aggregation, it is a huge for-profit business opportunity, and etrepreneurs should just do it and then put aid organizations to shame until they catch up- remembering that while the apps can be sold for profit, the underlying data is far more valuable to all when it is free and open.
Sites that were mentioned include:
Interaction's Food Security Preparedness Site
2. A breakout discussion during the second session on the potential of Mobile Phones led by Philip Auerswald. Some of the great ideas discussed include:
- Mobile phones are the most powerful instruments available to everybody
- The create mechanisms for sourcing ideas- if we could fund cell phone apps
- Mobile Learning as a part of eLearning
- Mobile phones with bar code readers in hospitals which send data to a database
- Smart Grid wireless technology to power phones with alternative energy
- Challenges with the business model of cell phone use: who will pay for credit after the donors leave
- One Africa Network Agreement to harmonize standards
- Students in Universities around the world are an untapped resource : people who use this technology and could be put to work
- Need for more competition among telcoms
- How do we get data from cell phones to the cloud?
Other sessions throughout the day included
- Data for Aid Effectiveness
- Open Standards: Pragmatic approaches to normalizing information
- Developers for Development
- Ideation and online collaboration platforms
- Incentivized Prizes and Challenges
- Maker Faire Africa- bringing innovators together
- Data Visualization
- Freedom of Information Acts
- Show and Tell
To engage on these topics and many more join the online community!
There are a number of emerging activities focusing on improving the transparency of aid and allowing organizations, projects, researchers, practitioners, and clients in developing countries to have improved access to aid information, data on outcomes, knowledge, and tools. We are getting closer to the day when anyone can easily determine who is doing what, where they are doing it, what they have learned, and who is funding them.
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