Open Knowledge Conference 2013

From 16 to 18 September Geneva became the hub of the global open data movement: with more than 900 registered visitors from over 45 countries, the Open Knowledge Conference 2013 was a success on every level. The world’s most important open data event of the year prompted more than 15,000 posts on Twitter, became a “trending topic” as far away as Washington and also met with a strong response in the national media. NZZ and Tages-Anzeiger, SonntagsZeitung and TagesWoche, 24heures and SRF were there and reported extensively.

The Swiss highlights certainly included the launch of the OGD pilot portal of the Federal Administration, as well as an impressive breadth and depth of expert contributions from institutions in Bern, Zurich and Geneva, not least the UN and CERN. The contributions by Ellen Miller and Jay Naidoo also attracted great international attention.

Jay Naidoo was one of Mandela’s companions and, as his communications minister, played a decisive role in shaping the framework conditions for the rapid growth of mobile telephony in Africa. Today he fights malnutrition and corruption, two closely intertwined evils.

In his summary, Naidoo talks about his impressions of OKCon: “These are young digital warriors. They are connected. Their weapon is the internet. Their enemy is corruption. And they are here to bring a revolution of ethics into the 21st century.” – but his talk itself is even more impressive:

 

 

Ellen Miller, head and co-founder of the transparency organisation doing pioneering work in the US, the Sunlight Foundation, provided another highlight – the content of her presentation spread around the world in no time via Twitter, Facebook and the live stream. Miller spoke of the fundamental political challenge she tackles with open government data, and of the crucial importance of the topic, which is far more than an IT or efficiency issue: it is not about “e-government” but about “we-government”!

Along with many other video recordings, Ellen Miller’s talk is already online:

 

 

Representatives of Opendata.ch, which organised the event together with the international Open Knowledge Foundation, said they were overwhelmed by the days around the conference: the decisions in Bern, the launch of opendata.admin.ch, the extensive media coverage and the intense conference in Geneva moved their cause forward by great and decisive steps in a short time.

André Golliez, President of Opendata.ch, noted:

“With OKCon 2013, open knowledge is developing in Switzerland too into a strong socio-political movement that is spreading into all areas of public knowledge production and use: into public administration, public-sector companies, the media, as well as science, education and culture.”

Hannes Gassert, Vice-President of Opendata.ch, added:

“OKCon 2013 was not only the world’s most important open data event of the year, but also a milestone for open data – in Switzerland as well as for the global movement. The topic is firmly established at the United Nations in Geneva, in federal Bern and in the Swiss media. As an organisation, Opendata.ch is now tackling the next challenges greatly strengthened.”

While in Geneva the World Bank launched an extensive partnership for open data in developing countries, Bern was anything but standing still: following the adoption of the Riklin postulate two weeks ago, which calls for a master plan for open government, the National Council yesterday evening, 23 September 2013, also dealt with the Graf-Litscher motion, which calls for three concrete measures to open up the federal government’s datasets, and approved it. The item now goes to the Council of States, where it is expected to be dealt with in the winter session.

Accordingly, there is little time to pause and look back on this great success: in Switzerland too, the open knowledge movement has now picked up full speed. The first milestone is behind us, but this is only the beginning. Switzerland’s open government data strategy has to be defined, further events – such as the Open Data Zurich Hacknights – are coming up, and a multitude of stories wants to be written. At stake is nothing less than the future nature of the information society, nothing less than a contemporary interpretation of transparency and participation.