Open Knowledge Conference 2013 in Geneva

okcon-de

Open Knowledge Conference 2013: Open Data – deepen, spread, connect.

From 17 to 18 September 2013, the Open Knowledge Foundation and Opendata.ch are bringing the Open Knowledge Conference 2013 (OKCon) to Geneva, putting transparency and innovation through Open Data and Open Knowledge firmly on the Swiss agenda as well. OKCon takes place under the patronage of Federal Councillor Alain Berset and with broad backing from the Confederation and the Canton of Geneva.

OKCon, the world’s leading Open Data and Open Knowledge event, is the latest edition of a series of events running since 2005 and, year after year, a milestone for these weighty and highly topical issues. Last year a thousand participants from more than fifty countries came together in Helsinki; past speakers have included the inventor of the World Wide Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Hans Rosling of Gapminder, Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive and the transparency activist Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation.

With Geneva as the venue, an important seat of the United Nations and of many other international institutions, a signal is being sent for more and stronger worldwide cooperation towards a widely connected, strong Open Data ecosystem.

Rufus Pollock, founder and director of the Open Knowledge Foundation, says: “International Geneva, with the UN and many other international organisations, is an ideal place for an event that will deal with the worldwide spread of Open Data. The event is a milestone for us, a great opportunity not only to bring our network together but an even broader community – and to work towards a stronger awareness of everything we can do to further strengthen the strategy, the policy and the whole ecosystem around Open Data around the world”.

André Golliez, President of the Open Knowledge Foundation Switzerland, says: “Bringing the international Open Knowledge Conference to Switzerland under the patronage of Federal Councillor Berset gives a strong impetus to Open Government Data in our country – the topic thereby becomes a firm part of the political agenda and further promotes innovation and transparency in the public sector”.

Tariq Khokhar of the World Bank: ”The Open Knowledge Conference is an extremely valuable gathering of thinkers and doers around the whole topic of “open”. Last year was already very impressive – I learned a great deal and made important connections. I work on Open Data in international development cooperation and am accordingly extremely excited about OKCon 2013 in Geneva”.

Hannes Gassert, technology entrepreneur and board member of Opendata.ch, adds: “In the business world we are not only seeing more and more exciting Open Data start-ups; large companies too are seeing more potential for themselves day by day. In Switzerland we have a great opportunity to use our grassroots-democratic, participatory culture and our tradition of data quality to decisively advance companies both small and large”.

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