Open Data for Development Challenge
January 27-28, 2014 – Montréal, Canada

Do you want to share your creative ideas and cutting-edge expertise, and make a difference in the world? Do you want to help Canadians and the world understand how development aid is spent and what its impact is? Do you want to be challenged and have fun at the same time?

If so, take the Open Data for Development Challenge!

This unique 36-hour ”codathon” will bring together Canadian and international technical experts and policy makers to generate new tools and ideas in the fields of open data and aid transparency and contribute to innovative solutions to the word’s pressing development challenges.

The event will feature keynote speakers Aleem Walji, Director of the World Bank’s Innovation Labs, and Mark Surman, Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation, and explore two related dimensions:

• Technical challenges that involve building applications to make existing open aid and development-related data more useful. Proposed topics include building a data viewer compatible with multilingual data, creating a publishing tool suitable for use by Canadian mid-sized non-profit organizations, developing and testing applications for open contracting, and taking a deep dive into the procurement data of the World Bank Group. There is room for challenges proposed by the community. Proposals should be submitted through the event website no later than January 8. Challenges will be published prior to the event, along with key datasets and other related information, to enable participants to prepare for the event.
• Policy discussions on the key issues that can make open data and open government enable development results. This would include the use of big data in development programming, the innovative ways in which data can be mapped and visualized for development, and the impact of open data on developing countries.

The international aid transparency community will be encouraged to take promising tools and ideas forward for further research and development.

The event will be in English and French, with interpretation provided in the plenary sessions and panel discussions.

We invite you to register, at no cost, at: https://www.accreditationcanada.gc.ca/ODDC/accreditation.aspx as soon as possible and no later than January 10. A message confirming your registration and providing additional information about the venue and accommodation will be sent to confirmed participants. Please wait for this confirmation before making any travel arrangements. Participants are asked to make their own accommodation arrangements. A limited number of guest rooms will be available to event participants at a preferential rate.

PARTNERS

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