We have been working with Social Media tools since they first emerged. We experimented on ourselves, finding ways in which the applications could support the work of the Euforic cooperative. On the basis of that experimentation we began to provide training and support and training to people and organisations working in international development. We were at the centre of the ground-breaking web2fordev conference in 2007 and since then have continued to evolve our ideas and services. The Euforic cooperative closed at the end of 2009. With the full support of the Board, Euforic staff and associates formed a company to continue the training and support functions.
Bibhusan Bista of YoungInnovations, Nepal, talks about Open Nepal, a collaborative programme aiming to develop an ecosystem that supports the publishing and use of Open Data and it's application in increasing transparency and accountability
Leo Mukutu, iHub Research Manager, talks about iHub Research, the criteria she used to judge the Research to Impact Hackathon competition and what would improve the proposals longer-term sustainability
The teams which entered the Hackathon talk about their projects
With iHub Research in Nairobi, the ELDIS team from IDS and the DfID R4D team from CABI, we organised a Hackathon to explore ways in which Development Research might be made more accessible for those working to support agriculture value chains. We asked for comments from some of the participants
Johannesburg, 26 October 2012. Claire Schouten from Integrity Action participated in the first Open Contracting global meeting. According to Claire, the event was the first step to build a community of practice around open contracting. The event has provided a lot of clarity in terms of next steps and action planning. In particular for Claire it important that partners from the global south are involved in the process and their voices being heard and taken into account. Ultimately, the open co...
Johannesburg, 25 October 2012. Chris Taggart is the Co-founder & CEO of OpenCorporates. In this video recorded at the Open Contracting global meeting, he explains what OpenCorporates aims to do and how this related to the work on procurement, corporate transparency and accountability. OpenCorporates is working to create a single, open database for every company and corporate legal entity in the world. At the moment, the database contains 49 million records from different jurisdictions all arou...
Johannesburg, 24 October 2012. Rueben Lifuka, Transparency International Zambia, took part in the panel on "The open government movement and its potential for impact" at the Open contracting event. In this video recorded after the session, Mr. Lifuka underlines the importance of standards in defining what open contracting is. When standards are defined, it will be easier to make the case to government on what they would open up. Mr. Lifuka further elaborates and touches upon what he calls "sma...
Johannesburg, 24 October 2012. Peter Eigen, Founding EITI Chair; Advisory Council, HUMBOLDT-VIADRINA School of Governance, was the keynote speaker at the Open Contracting event, After the session, we caught up with him to record this short interview. According to Mr. Eigen, there is no reason for secrecy any more. Especially in countries where economy is driven by extractive industries, people need to hold companies and government accountable for what's on the contracts, which therefore need t...
Johannesburg, 24 October 2012. Dinky Dube, Office of the Public Protector, South Africa, participated in the opening panel at the Open Contracting event. In this video, she reflects on access to Information and how this is a right in South Africa. See more at http://www.open-contracting.org
Johannesburg, 24 October 2012. Errol Barnet from CNN moderated the first panel discussion at the Open Contracting event. After the session, we recorded a short video with Errol, to capture his takeaways from the panel discussion. According to Errol, one of the main message emerging is the need to make the access to information more widespread around the world. Open contracting and transparency benefit the larger community. But fighting corruption takes courage and solid ethics. See more at htt...
