BK joins International Open Data Conference in Spain

Bantay Kita's (BK) research and communications officer Marco Zaplan joined and delivered a presentation during the International Open Data Conference (IODC) held in Madrid, Spain last October 6-7.

Mr. Zaplan presented on BK's DATA Portal and also the approach BK has used in gathering inputs from the very users of the portal which are the communities. He shared about BK's experience in organizing open data workshops and also the outputs of the feedback from these sessions.

He stressed the importance of disclosing not just data specific to communities but also those that are relevant to their advocacies. He said that even if there are plentiful data available, making them relevant to the context of communities is one that actually makes difference.

Prior to the main IODC, Mr. Zaplan also attended the Openness in Natural Resources Working Group Peer Exchange from October 4-5. The forum invited participants from various Open Government Partnership (OGP)-implementing countries to share and strategize on the challenges faced by countries in OGP natural resource commitments implementation. The group meeting was set ahead of the OGP Summit to be held in Paris, France this December.