Welcome to Open & Shut!
Hello there! Welcome to Open & Shut — a new blog dedicated to exploring the opportunities and challenges of working with open data in closed societies around the world. Although we’ll be exploring questions relevant to open data practitioners worldwide, we’re particularly interested in seeing how civil society groups and actors in the Global South are using open data to push for greater government transparency and tackle daunting social and economic challenges facing their societies.
The idea for this blog began with a panel that was serendipitously arranged at the Internet Freedom Festival in Valencia in March 2017. Three open data practitioners representing Iran, Myanmar and the United States discussed the challenges of developing open data ecosystems in countries where governments are less than enamored with the idea of transparency. It became very clear that folks working on open data issues in “closed societies” across the world needed their own corner of the Internet where they can network, share stories, inspire each other, and collaborate on new projects.
Throughout this series, we’ll be profiling and interviewing organisations working with open data worldwide and providing do-it-yourself data tutorials that will be useful for beginners as well as data experts. The blog also welcomes guest posts, so please drop us a message if you’re interested in contributing!
This blog is just the beginning — we’ll be hosting a one-day Open & Shutevent in September around the same themes of open data in closed societies. We’d love for you to get involved in the conversation, and to join us later in the year to learn about the work of some incredible open data practitioners and activists!
What do we mean by the terms ‘open data’ and ‘closed societies’?
It’s important to be clear about what we’re dealing with, here. So let’s establish some key terms. When we talk about ‘open data’, we mean data that anyone can access, use and share freely. And when we say ‘closed societies’, we’re referring to states or regions in which the political and social environment is actively hostile to notions of openness and public scrutiny, and which hold principles of freedom of information in low esteem. In closed societies, data is either not published at all by the government, or else is only published in inaccessible formats, is missing data, is hard to find or else is just not digitised at all.
Iran is one such state that we would characterise as a ‘closed society’. We’ve had to confront the challenges of poor data practice, secrecy, and government opaqueness while undertaking work to support freedom of information and freedom of expression in the country. Based on these experiences, we’ve been working to build Iran Open Data — a civil society-led open data portal for Iran, in an effort to make Iranian government data more accessible and easier for researchers, journalists, and civil society actors to work with.
Who could benefit from reading this blog?
You, hopefully! We hope to produce content that’s relevant for a wide array of journalists, activists, government officers, researchers, open data practitioners, and civil society actors. So why might this blog be relevant for you? Well…
…if you’re a journalist, we’ll be writing about the potential of data journalism to uncover or add meat to your stories, and will give you a crash course in practical data literacy skills!
…if you’re an activist, we’d like to show you examples of how bold citizens have used open data to identify corruption and mismanagement, and hold governments and private companies to account.
…if you’re a researcher, we’ll be showcasing some advanced techniques for using data to dig deep into research topics, and looking at some different data collection methods.
…if you work inside the government, we’ll report on stories where open data has helped to slash costs, and talk about the challenges governments have faced in opening up their datasets.
…finally, if you’re an avid open data practitioner campaigning to open up data in your country, we hope to show off effective methods of getting data from your governments, processing it, and opening it up for use by civil society actors.
Who’ll be curating and contributing to the blog?
Meet the team! Harsha, Hazwany, and Yan
Harsha is from India and has been working at the intersection of data and cities. He has worked with the Hyderabad Urban Lab and is now associated with Columbia University’s Urban Design Lab. He loves making maps of his hometown Hyderabad (which you can explore here). He’s an avid traveler, and in his spare time, he loves learning all sorts of random trivia about the cities he’s been to on his travels.
Hazwany is from Malaysia and has been working in open data for two and a half years. Previously, she was a project consultant at the Sinar Project, working on data visualisation for social audits, undertaking policy research, coordinating workshops, and network building. Currently, she’s working as an Open Data Officer, is a fellow at the Asia-Pacific Internet Governance Academy, and is a co-founder-cum-facilitator for Youth For Rights.
Yan is from Myanmar and has been working in open data for a few years. He started the open data portal OpenDevelopmentMyanmar.net while he was working with Phandeeyar’s Innovation Hub in Myanmar. In 2017, he joined the School of Data Fellowship working with the Natural Resource Governance Institute to open up data about the extractives industry in Myanmar. He joined Open and Shut in June 2017 to help build a community of people working to support open data in closed societies. He is obsessed with data visualisation, civic tech, data journalism — and of course, open data.
Why are we so excited about this new blog?
The benefits of open data are well-known and broadly understood in the Global North — and these countries, by and large, are reaping the benefits. However, the vast majority of the world’s population is still struggling to see any improvements in their quality of life or political processes as a result of emerging open data practices. In politically closed societies, the reluctance of the political elite to engage with the open data movement is preventing citizens from achieving economic development and limiting politicians’ accountability.
Open & Shut will shine a light on the exciting new ways that different groups are using data to question dominant narratives, transform public opinion, and bring about tangible change in closed societies. At the same time, it’ll demonstrate the challenges faced by open data advocates in opening up this valuable data. We intend to get the community talking about the need to build cross-border alliances in order to empower the open data movement and to exchange knowledge and best practices despite the different needs and circumstances we all face.
Open data has the potential to transform closed societies and bring about profound social and economic transformation to countries across the Global South. By opening a dialogue about open data practice, and the role of open data in democratisation, economic development, and effective public service delivery, we hope to support the work of open data practitioners in closed societies worldwide, and to help bring about greater transparency to the places that need it most!