International workshops
With the support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Working Group is organising two international academic workshops bringing together senior economists, data publishers, economics libraries and funders of economic research to share ideas and discuss the progress is using open data and open tools in economics.
The first event will take place in Cambridge, UK in December 17-18 with the purpose of gaining a better understanding of the potential value of open data in Economics and illustrating some of the success stories, as well as identifying the current obstacles, which prevent economic information and data from being shared.
The second event will take place in the spring of 2013 in Cambridge, MA.
Open Knowledge Festival
One of the biggest events for the Open Knowledge Network for 2012 was the Open Knowledge Festival (OKFestival). The 2012 theme of OKFestival was Open Knowledge in Action, looking at the value that can be generated by opening up knowledge, the ecosystems of organisations that can benefit from such sharing, and the impacts that transparency can have in our societies. What kinds of new professions, ideas and community initiatives can emerge within our governments, markets, networks and neighbourhoods as a result of these engagements?
The Open Economics Working Group organised the stream on Open Knowledge and Sustainability together with the Centre for Sustainable Communications at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Cleanweb UK. Read the summary blog about all organised sessions and the Green Hackathon. At the panel session on Open Data for Measuring Social Progress we invited Dr. Ulla Rosenstroem (Senior Specialist at the Prime Minister’s Office to present the Findicator, Vincent Finat-Duclos, (Statistical Editor at the OECD) to introduce the OECD Better Life Index, and Dr. Robin Houston (Developer of Guardian’s Rio+20 Better or Worse app) to talk about the experience in developing the project. Dirk Heine, member of the Open Economics Working Group shared our experience in building YourTopia Global and YourTopia Italy.