“Everything I need to know about open data, I learned from open source”

BoF "Open data in development" at OKCon (via Tobias Eigen)BoF BerlinBut what did we learn from open source? Two days of Open Knowledge Conference gave lots of food for thought. And lots of inspiration as well: plenty of projects doing interesting work, and experiences to share. And to add a cherry to the cake, we had a great “open lunch for development” with several people active in development aid. My (delayed) take-aways for Open for Change.

Let’s build a “Debian for Development Data”

Open Data (photo Jonathan Gray)Open Data (photo Jonathan Gray)I just returned from an intense week in the UK: an IKM Emergent workshop in Oxford, and the  Open Government Data Camp in London had me almost drowning in “open data” examples and conversations, with a particular angle on aid data and the perspectives of international development.

As the result of that, I think we’re ready for a “Debian for Development Data”: a collection of data sets, applications and documentation to service community development, curated by a network of people and organisations who share crucial values on democratisation of information and empowerment of people.