2nd International Workshop Creating Impact with Open Data in Agriculture and Nutrition

Following the highly successful first GODAN workshop in January 2015 the Government of the Netherlands, Ministry of Economic Affairs has announced the second international GODAN workshop on “Creating Impact with Open Data in Agriculture and Nutrition”. The workshop will take place 10-11 November 2015 in The Hague, The Netherlands. This will give GODAN partners and others the opportunity to identify the pathways required for GODAN to achieve meaningful impact. Please register using this link.

Introduction

Open data offers great opportunities for informed and transparent decision making and for developing a data driven economy. There is a growing awareness of the potential impacts of this global trend and in January 2015 the participants in the 1st workshop ‘Creating Impact with Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition’ jointly produced a rich picture of the many on-going and upcoming initiatives and activities in this field. Although the workshop was very successful in showcasing the many relevant tools, data sets, networks, and initiatives, it also resulted in the conclusion that additional action was needed to clearly outline the pathways to impact of these tools, data sets, networks and initiatives and to use these insights in developing more general views on the role of open data in achieving impact. Therefore the objectives of the 2nd workshop are:

• To develop a shared general understanding what it takes to generate societal impact with open data in the field of agriculture and nutrition;
• To make this concrete and specific for the following areas of societal activity:
  • Realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targeted at the economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainable development;
  • Innovation that contributes to the transition processes and citizen participation that are needed (e.g. economic processes/business activity and improved governance);
  • Improved strategic decision making.
• To explore routes to impact, business models that lay behind open data, and good practices.

The workshop aims at bringing together a mix of key players from public as well as private sector organisations at national, international and global level: governments, businesses, consultants, universities, research organisations and NGOs. The participants are invited to share their views, practices, success and failure stories and business cases; and through an open process of interaction and discussion identify concrete steps to actively turn the power of open data into actual impact. The workshop will be organised in collaboration with Wageningen UR and the GODAN secretariat. The conference style presentation and discussion of a large series of individual cases during the 1st workshop was appropriate for its objective to exchange information and develop shared views on the potential impact of open data in the broad field of agriculture, food supply and nutrition. For this second workshop the central question is not ‘what does the desired impact look like’, but ‘how to achieve it’. This requires a different format and a more hands-on and action oriented approach. To make this possible, the scope for the workshop has been slightly narrowed down to ‘Food & nutrition security’.

Preliminary programme

Day 1 – Tuesday 10 November

• Morning: arrival participants, start workshop at 10:00h
• Opening of the workshop by the Ministry of Economic Affairs
• Taking aim/raising questions on key issues to trigger discussion. Central theme: what are the key questions you should ask yourself when you want to achieve impact with open data? This will be addressed by 2 or 3 speakers from the perspective of: a company (e.g. Syngenta); a country  (e.g. Tanzania/Kenya, Turkey); a theme (e.g. by OECD, EC, a NGO, or a funding organisation)
• Parallel workshops (with a lunch break): discussion in groups of max. 10 persons with a focus on questions that have to be addressed from:
  • Workshop 1 – A national/country perspective (lead: FAO/CTA)
  • Workshop 2 – A NGO and funding perspective (lead: Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs/ AidData)
  • Workshop 3 – A private sector perspective (lead: Ministry of Economic Affairs)
    (more groups/workshops possible)
• Dinner
• Summary reports from workshops

Day 2 – Wednesday 11 November

• Brief reflection on day 1 and what it means for day 2
• State-of-the-art: plenary introductions on the following thematic topics:
  •     Technology (TNO/ITC/…)
  •     Organisational issues (GODAN director)
  •     Best practices and opportunities (ODI)
  •     Developing business innovations with open data (GODAN)
• Parallel discussion in groups with a focus on the following questions (each group to discuss all 3 questions):
  • How to link the thematic introductions to the issues discussed on day 1
  • Actions needed to actually use opportunities for creating impact on the short term.
  • Potential for future developments.
• Plenary discussion of next steps/initiatives with a focus on agenda-setting and priorities
• Lunch / departure

Follow this link to register.