Open Government Partnership 2013 summit session proposal
The Open Government Partnership hosts its annual summit this year in London on 31 October - 1 November. Wikimedia UK has submitted a proposal for the summit on the theme of promoting open licences. The details of the call for proposals, the form and our submission are below.
Open Government Partnership
In just over 3 months around 1000 reformers from government, civil society and the private sector will gather in London for the OGP Annual Summit. The programme will build on core elements of what the OGP is all about: ambitious and innovative commitments on open government, and reinventing the relationship between the citizen and the state. We want the OGP Annual Summit to bring together leaders, decision-makers, thinkers and doers from across the OGP’s participating countries and beyond. The Summit is an opportunity for the community to make new pledges, prepare for the next round of action plans, have real conversations on what worked and what didn’t, connect across borders, explore new open government frontiers and, above all, be inspired and energized.
The event will take place 31 October- 1 November 2013 in London. The summit will be structured in three parts: i) the plenary session where new commitments will be made by political leaders and examples of where OGP is making a difference will be highlighted; ii) a core programme that builds on particular themes of interest, and provides space for OGP sessions around, for example, the IRM and the working groups; iii) a festival, which is a freer part of the programme and is your chance to showcase or schedule sessions that are relevant to the ethos and spirit of the OGP. In addition, civil-society organisations involved in OGP will be hosting a day of events in London on 30 October. Ideas for the civil society day can be submitted in the section at the bottom of this form.
One of the OGP's greatest strengths is the people it can bring together. That is why we want to draw on the energy and ideas of the OGP community in creating the programme for the Summit. The deadline for submissions is September 1. You will hear soon after if your proposal can fit into the programme. If it can we look forward to working with you to make it happen!
The form
Please note that instructions etc for the form are in italics and our answers in plain text
Required Name - Alastair McCapra, Secretary, Wikimedia UK
Country United Kingdom
Email Address Alastair.mccapra@wikimedia.org.uk
Organisation Wikimedia UK
Session Proposals for the OGP Summit
In this section we ask you for session proposals for the summit. Some ideas might make it to the plenary, most of them will be part of the festival. And some might not make it to the programme as we have limited capacity.
If you or your organization can pay for your proposal and attendance at the summit then that is very welcome as there are limited funds available. However, if your session proposal is accepted we will discuss with you how to best make it happen. Do you have ideas for specific sessions we should include at the Summit? These could relate to any aspect of open government – but please tick any boxes your suggestion relates to below:
Health Cities Open Data Yes E-Government Yes Citizen Engagement Yes Access to Information Yes Private Sector Improving Public Services Increasing Public Integrity Possibly
More Effectively Managing Public Resources
Increasing Corporate Accountability Creating Safer Communities Other:
What type of session will it be?
Inspirational Talk Yes Workshop Panel/ Debate Exhibition Other:
Please outline your proposed session. What do you want to cover? How do you want to structure it? How long will it be? (250 words maximum)
Open licences are becoming increasingly important in the digital age. They act as drivers of engagement and participation, and they promote the sharing of knowledge and information. Wikipedia is the 5th most visited website in the world with over 500 million unique visitors every month and is proof that open licenses and open collaboration can have a huge positive impact. As the UK charity that supports and promotes Wikipedia, we are able to offer a unique insight into how these licences work, why they are effective and why they should be widely adopted.
The case for making publicly funded works such as data, photography and research freely available and under open licences is clear. Ensuring the widest use and re-use of government works under open licenses provides value for money to the taxpayer and encourages wider participation in civil society. It allows people to feel ownership of works that they have paid for and can stimulate interest and economic activity. Freely licensed materials are frequently used to create derivative works of great value, both economically and culturally.
The presentation will cover the basics of open licences, how they work and how government can make use of them effectively. It will give real world examples of how open licences can stimulate economic activity, add value and promote engagement. It will point to Wikipedia as the highest profile example of the successful utilisation of these licences.
20 minutes is sufficient for a talk with limited time for questions, although longer is preferable.
If we include this idea, can we count on you to work with us to get it in the agenda and make it happen? * Yes
Please set out who you propose asking to speak, facilitate and participate in your session. Balancing speakers from different sectors (e.g. government and civil society), as well as from different countries, is a plus.
We propose that the presentation would be given by the Secretary of Wikimedia UK, Alastair McCapra. Alastair has extensive experience of working in the third sector.
Please describe who you and/or your organization are. Please also describe any organisations you will partner with on this session.
Wikimedia UK is the UK charity that supports and promotes Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, such as Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. We also have a remit to support free and open knowledge and encourage the use of open licences. Wikimedia UK is a charity and is the local chapter of the global Wikimedia movement. We also work to collect, develop and distribute freely licensed knowledge (and other cultural, educational and historic material). We do this by building relationships with educational institutions, learned societies, galleries, libraries, archives and museums. We advocate the use of free licences as a way of sharing knowledge and making it available to every person on the planet, for free. Wikipedia has encyclopaedias in over 280 languages and has over four million articles in the English language alone. It is visited by over 500 million people worldwide, every month. Wikimedia Commons is a repository of freely licensed media files (images, sound, video, presentations etc) that anyone can reuse, share and use to make derivative works. It currently holds over 18 million files.
Inspirational speakers
Who would you like to see speaking at the summit who you think will inspire others? Why would you recommend them? (250 words maximum) For suggestions made here we would not be expecting you to have a role in making it happen.
Anyone with extensive experience of working in the field of open access and open data. Big data projects using open data are particularly interesting.
International commitments
The summit provides an opportunity to encourage countries to collaborate with each other on commitments that go beyond national boundaries. Do you see big opportunities for countries to act collectively to advance open government? What specific commitments or initiatives could make a real difference? (250 words maximum)
Wikimedia projects are based on openness and collaboration. Our communities are global and come from all kinds of educational, economic, social and cultural backgrounds. Our projects are proof that grand scale open collaboration works. Were governments to collectively make as much of their information as possible openly available the potential for crowdsourcing solutions, innovations and inventions is enormous. For example, making data available on Wikidata instantly makes it available for analysis and interpretation by a large community. The potential of big data projects to increase efficiency, lead to creativity and improve productivity are very powerful and big data projects are likely to have an enormous impact.