This post originally appeared on our Open Data Labs website

A celebration of Open Data Day in Jakarta

What: “Open is the New Smart: Making Cities Work for Citizens” Event
Where: Goethehaus Jakarta
When: 7th of March, 16:00 to 19:00
Register: Through our Eventbrite page, or contact Antya Widita (antya@webfoundation.org)

On March 7, we’re organising the “Open is the New Smart: Making Cities Work for Citizens” event, which aims to kickstart a dialogue on the potential of open data to help improve lives by being a key enabler for citizen participation in building smarter, better cities in Indonesia. The event will take place at the Goethehaus in Jakarta and is hosted together with the Goethe-Institut Indonesien, Jakarta Smart City, and with the support of Making All Voices Count.

The event is aligned with the Open Data Day happening on March 4, an annual global gathering that challenges, celebrates and showcases the benefits of open data in communities to encourage the adoption of open data policies and initiatives at local and national levels. Through this event, we’ll look at the important shift from “smart” to “open cities”, touching on two of the four themes this year: tracking public money flows and using open data to benefit the environment.

Over the past year, a growing number of cities across Indonesia have launched “smart city” initiatives to harness technology and data for better planning, more efficient allocation of resources and improved public service. However, we learned that in spite of these efforts, the biggest missing piece of the puzzle for success is the involvement of citizens to help shape their cities and the policies that govern them. This is where “open cities” comes in: when citizens, local government and small businesses all have access to the data and information that powers decision-making, they can bring their expertise together to tackle urban challenges more quickly and effectively.

Attending and speaking in this event are representatives from the Jakarta Smart City, Making All Voices Count, Rujak, Radya Labs, Perkumpulan Skala, ICAIOS and Indonesian Youth on Disaster Risk Reduction. We will also have an exhibit of open cities projects. To arrange interviews on smart-to-open cities with spokespeople from the Jakarta Lab, Goethe-Institut Indonesien, and other panel members, please contact Denise Karunungan (denise@webfoundation.org) by March 6, 2017. We’ve attached the event agenda below so you can learn more about what’s in store that evening.

Sharing his thoughts on open cities, following the end of our Innovating for Open Cities initiative, our Engagement and Innovation Manager Antya Widita shares:

“Innovation and engagement are crucial in making cities ‘people-centric’—working for, with and between citizens, government and civil society. In the past months, being knee-deep involved in the Lab’s Innovating for Open Cities project, I learned and saw first-hand that to make cities better and more sustainable, everyone has to be involved. And what’s a better way to get that involvement than having the people themselves involved in the design and shaping processes of their city?”

We believe that this event can help kickstart the dialogue on raising citizen involvement and participation in building better cities. You can contact Denise Karunungan (denise@webfoundation.org) or Mira Fatimah (mira.fatimah@goethe.de) for any inquiries on the event. For us on Twitter @ODLabJkt and @GI_Indonesien to see live updates on the day itself.

We hope to see you there!

Event Agenda: