Do We Need Five-Star Open Development?

According to Beth Noveck open data can probably not make government more transparent and accountable. Instead, she holds the value of open data is primarily in making use of the wisdom of crowds to solve complex problems in society. Opening up data, she explains, allows third parties to make sense of existing data, create sense through data mash-ups or create public attention for hitherto neglected problems.

This week the biggest open data and open knowledge event ever will take place in Helsinki, Finland, organised by the Open Knowledge Foundation and a network of open data enthusiasts from around the world.

The growing importance of open data in many different sectors is illustrated in the thirteen topic streams ranging from open government and open democracy, over open education and research to open geodata and open gender. Together with other colleagues from different countries I have been part of the open development stream – a number of workshops and sessions about how development cooperation and development can become more open.