The Web Foundation is announcing today a new grant, awarded by the Ford Foundation, to demonstrate and accelerate the global adoption of Open Data.  Within the scope of this grant, the Web Foundation will continue to contribute to raising global awareness of the feasibility and benefits of Open Data in developing countries.  There will be a special focus on Indonesia.  This effort is expected to last until the end of June, 2013.

Awareness Raising, Community Building, Open Data Directory Foundations

The Web Foundation will continue to build global awareness about the benefits and challenges of Open Data and promote the idea of “doing open Data well.”   Using our six dimensional approach and thinking well beyond portals and data sets, we are committed to designing initiatives that last.  We will continue participating and speaking at events and convening meetings with the relevant stakeholders within and beyond government.  We will increase our community building efforts and, finally, we will build the foundation for a directory/toolkit of freely and openly available resources for the community at large to reuse.

Indonesia Open Data Feasibility Study

The Web Foundation will also conduct an Open Data feasibility study in Indonesia in coordination with the Ford Foundation regional office. The study will build on the methodology and experience of two prior studies conducted by the Web Foundation in Ghana and Chile and the Web Foundation’s general Open Data expertise. Four stages of actions are planned:

• Definition of a baseline to determine the country’s Open Government Data (OGD) readiness, based on a checklist developed in the aforementioned studies
• Independent research to develop a theoretical approach for the country’s OGD readiness
• Field visit to identify groups of actors and local champions who might be involved in an OGD initiative locally, and to identify potential threats and opportunities not identified during the advance research
• In particular, attention will be placed on existing capacities, and on identifying capacity building initiatives that may be required
• Completion of a final, consolidated report that summarizes the results of the study:
• Results of the assessment
• Potential challenges and threats
• Groups of actors that will be key in the implementation of an OGD project and their role
• Strategy, if the OGD readiness allows it, for bootstrapping the project and leading it to success