Geneva to host the United Nations of Open | Open Knowledge Foundation

"On September 16th to 18th, Geneva will see an international convention unlike any other this prestigious diplomatic hub has ever seen: the Open Knowledge Conference is bringing together representatives from a wide range of UN agencies and public administrations with technology activists, civic entrepreneurs and data-driven designers. Hackers and makers will shake hands with distinguished diplomats, aid workers will solve concrete problems with data analysts! In the last few years, governments around the world and international organizations alike have made enormous progress in opening up essential data to the public – data ranging from sonnets to statistics, from genes to geodata. Open data has fast become an eminent driver for more transparency, accountability and innovation. Today, as these initiatives grow and continue to enable innovators both in technology and society, it becomes clear that the notion of 'open', like 'green', is rapidly becoming an important foundation of both sustainable technology strategies and forward-looking policymaking. The coming together of over 600 data practitioners, researchers and decision makers from around the world in Geneva marks an important milestone in this movement going global. And with participants from UNICEF, UNITAR, UNESCO, UNDP, CERN, the World Bank and many more global organisations it also marks the coming of age of 'open' inside the network of international institutions. Main speakers include Ellen Miller, CEO of the Sunlight Foundation, Chris Vein, Chief Innovation Officer at the World Bank, Chris Taggart, CEO of OpenCorporates and Jay Naidoo, Chair of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). In addition to the high-level plenary sessions, a hacker space for software developers as well as a large number of workshops, from data journalism to open finance, from open transport data to civic data literacy will make sure the event is highly interactive, highly productive and connect the principal actors of the global open movement. The goal: to open up knowledge around the world and see it used and useful."