allAfrica.com: Africa: USAID Announces New Open Data and Technology Tools At G-8 International Conference On Open Data for Agriculture (Page 1 of 2)

"Yesterday, at the G-8 International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced the release of exciting new datasets and tools that increase transparency and provide the fuel for innovators and decision makers to solve problems. The conference, hosted by the United States Government, convened countries from the G-8 and New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition to discuss the potential of open data for agriculture and develop action plans to open and apply food security relevant datasets. To demonstrate the power of open data to deliver solutions, the conference also featured technologists and entrepreneurs who use USAID and U.S Government data to develop products to bring real solutions to the developing world. Global development is one of the six focus areas of the Open Data Initiatives projects developed by the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House. The Open Data Initiatives focus on liberating government data and voluntarily contributed corporate data to fuel entrepreneurship, create jobs, and improve lives. This is also part of the Obama Administration's Open Government Initiative, and the announcements yesterday are representative of how government agencies are exploring the ways that citizens can benefit from the increased availability and application of public information ... USAID made the following announcements at the G-8 International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture:  [1] New pathway to engage the tech and developer communities and fuel entrepreneurship  ... USAID announced the launch of www.usaid.gov/developer, a website with tools specific to technologists and developers which will serve as a resource for major USAID data sets and a central location for Agency APIs (Application Program Interface)  [2] Making U.S. Government assistance data more accessible than ever before ... USAID has developed an API for the Greenbook dataset that covers all U.S. Government foreign assistance financial data since the Marshall Plan. We hope that this will spark developers to utilize this information in new and innovative ways"