ILDA & The Caribbean Open Institute, working for Open Data in Latin America and the Caribbean

According to the global Open Data Index, carried out by OKFN, and the Open Data Barometer of World Wide Web Foundation, nations from Latin America and the Caribbean continue climbing positions in international open data ranking, gaining prominence in their commitment to openness and reuse; thanks to the pioneering work done by different entities worldwide, Iniciativa Latinoamericana por los Datos Abiertos (ILDA) and Caribbean Open Institute are among those institutions.

ILDA has been designed as a network which brings together governments, experts and civil organizations in Latin America, whose goals is supporting the development of open data policies, raising awareness and training civil servants in open government and data, and developing studies in several areas, such as open data for government transparency; open data and open cities; innovation in health and education; natural resources; dialogue in open data policies in the region.

Moreover, ILDA’s action plan also includes collaboration with specific forums on open data, and support for academic institutions to develop both case studies and strategic initiatives that provide evidence of how open data promotes social change.

Two of the most prominent projects of this initiative are the events ABRE LATAM and ConDatos, where members of the government, civil society, developers, businesses and citizens work together to establish a dialogue on the status and impact of open data in the region. ABRE LATAM has been designed as an unconference where participants, on their own behalf, discuss topics related to open data; ConDatos is presented as a conference which gathers experts and representatives of private and public institutions with the aim of deepening open data policies, open government, privacy and new ways of working with open data.

At the same time, the Caribbean Open Institute works to place the Caribbean on the international open data map. Despite the gaps in this region in terms of quality, access, publication and reuse of information, the entity -formed by seven Caribbean stakeholders- has become a sound organization that focuses its activities on three main pillars.

One of the latest projects in which the entity is involved is the creation of a Caribbean School of Data: a program that seeks to raise awareness and build a robust culture of open data in the Caribbean. To this end an sustainable open data infrastructure is being created and the institution is promoting the reuse of open data, looking for a collaboration between the public and private sectors, and including other related areas as big data and data opened up by private sector.

These two projects are just one example of the effort that Latin American and Caribbean community is making to help open data become a tangible reality available to citizens, public agencies, private entities, civil and academic institutions. Their work contributes to transform the open data into economic growth, job creation and improving  quality of life in the region.