This is a guest blog by Pavrita Rana, a Coordinator at Open Nepal. The full, original version of this blog can be found on Open Nepal’s website here. 

Open Data Day is celebrated internationally every year, where people in different cities across the world come together to liberate data, write applications, create visualizations, and hack open data. Following the success of the past two years, we are happy to announce the celebration of Open Data Day in Kathmandu on Saturday 21st February.  The Open Data Day (ODD) events in 2013 and 2014 inspired enthusiasm from a wide-ranging spectrum of audiences, encouraging their participation in Nepal’s open data movement for effective development. As the movement grows in size and strength we have seen this enthusiasm rise with every passing year – we look forwards to welcoming you to this year’s ODD 2015.

This year we are celebrating ODD under the theme, ‘Open Data for Local Governance and Civic Participation’. Young Innovations (representing Open Nepal) and Kathmandu Living Labs are partnering with Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC), KMC Ward 7 office and Liveable Kathmandu to organize this event.

What’s happening in ODD 2015 in Kathmandu?

• Ward 7 pilot project launch: The pilot project initiated at ODD 2014 by Young Innovations (representing Open Nepal) and Kathmandu Living Labs in collaboration with the office of Hon. Gagan Thapa, Member of Parliament and Kathmandu Metropolitan City will be launched on this event. As well as launching the Ward 7 portal, the event will share the experiences and lessons learned from working with local municipal data.
• Keynote Session: We are inviting high ranking government officials, parliamentarians, policy makers and open data leaders to share their insights and perspectives on open data.
• Talk Programs: Parallel sessions of the talk program will be held throughout the day, covering a range of different topics relating to the theme of ODD 2015. Participants are invited join any session as per their interest.
• Open Data Hackathon: Techies will team up with CSO representatives, journalists and other members in the audience to collectively develop applications, visualizations and tools for accessing and using open data at the local level.
• Mapathon: This session will provide training for people to map their local community in Open Street Map using GPS in mobile devices, and in using mobile apps to report their grievances to the government.
• Showcasing of Initiatives: A range of different organizations and groups will host booths to showcase their work and interact with visitors.

The tentative program of events is shared in our dedicated Open Data Day 2015 overview page. Our plans are still in progress so watch this space for updates to the ODD 2015 agenda.

What’s in store for you?

• Networking: ODD is a great platform to meet people from diverse range of professions -technologists, journalists, researchers, academics, CSO representatives, government officials, parliamentarians etc and to make connections with them for exploring opportunities to collaborate in future. Grab this chance!
• Learning: ODD presents a myriad of opportunities to learn new skills on using and analysing data in your work whether it is building applications or developing effective messages for advocacy; interact with people to learn new ideas and concepts of open data, open development, transparency, accountability, governance and citizen participation and gain new perspectives on them. We know you wouldn’t want to miss this opportunity!
• Sharing: Empower others by sharing your skills, knowledge and experience. It could be helpful to them in many ways and who knows, you could inspire an exciting new project!
• Promoting: With nearly 500 people attending the event throughout the day, ODD is an ideal event for you to promote your initiatives on open data, access to better information, transparency, accountability, and local governance.
• Be part of the Open Data Community: If you have ideas on how to make better use of data and information to solve problems and foster more effective development in your community, please join us at this event. If you want to learn about open data or just see what’s happening in this space, this is an event to go!  Come join us and help the open data community in Nepal to grow.

It’s going to be exciting! Join us on 21st February at DeerWalk Institute of Technology, Sifal and be a part of ODD 2015. If you want to know more, contact us at info@opennepal.net.