Let's make Belgian knowledge open, usable, useful and used! Open Belgium is an annual Open Knowledge and Open Data conference gathering industry, research, government and citizen stakeholders . In other words, anyone who is interested in Open Knowledge and Open Data is more than welcome!
We aim to bring you up to speed with the latest trends, innovations and best practices by sharing experiences among this wide range of participants. Get inspired by keynote presentation, reflective Q&A sessions, engaging panel discussions as well as hands-on and minds-on workshops. Due to covid-19 restrictions, Open Belgium will take place online, with free sessions spread out over the entire month of March.
If this sparked your interest, check out the program below and join the open community! Feel free to join the Twitter conversation via #openbelgium21 . Your voice matters!
PROGRAM ( calendar )
Tue, 2 March (9.30-10.15): We reuse LOD and open it up. Your turn to build it! #keynote #intermediate
Your city publishes its decisions as Linked Open Data providing great value for reuse. We are putting linked data to full use at the Flemish Government. Local governments share their decisions as data. We actively use this for our own workflows, but we also make this data available for you. What would you do with this data? We challenge you to imagine a brighter future for your hometown, and share your dreams with us. Tue, 2 March (15.00-15.45): Open data at the federal level #Q&A #intermediate
What datasets are you looking for ? Do you want to share your success stories and biggest gripes ? What formats and/or APIs should public administrations provide ? Let us know how we can help you to develop open data applications and services. Thu, 4 March (11.00-11.45): Ghent's open data journey #interview #intermediate
Ghent first started its Open data journey in 2010 with some rudimentary excel files on an open server. It has evolved to a mature data portal with over 116 high-quality open data sets, on several topics. You will be able to discover the evolutions of the Open data approach of the city of Ghent as well as their latest experiments to democratise open data (community events, slightly "atypical" data sets). Can we find more open data than that? Thu, 4 March (15.00-15.45): 20 years of open biodiversity data in BE. What's next? #keynote #intermediate
Belgium was at the very foundation of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility in 2001. This session will tell you how we did make Biodiversity evidence Data open, usable, useful and used. It will also indicate the lessons learned and look forward the challenges that remain to make it even easier to discover, annotate and reuse in the future. Fri, 5 March (18.00-19.30): OSM news and discussions #workshop #intermediate
- What more can we do to open up streetview imagery? - How to deal with the battle of the paths, where all care about their land being mapped in OSM? - Where to go next in our relationships with local government (tool MapComplete). - How can we speed up integrating official data (GRB / PICC import, road completion). - What's happening in the OpenStreetMap Foundation and how is it relevant to Belgium? Tue, 9 March (9.00-10.30): Hacking open culture in 90min, a creative brainstorm #workshop # intermediate
This is a 90-minute concept hackathon. So get those creative juices flowing in the morning. In ‘The Collections of Ghent’ project, the City of Ghent wants to get a clear picture of our shared heritage by linking collections from the archives and different museums and even capture the multi-voiced and multi-layered nature of cultural heritage through citizen testimonies and stories. But what can we do with all that data once it is available? How would a museum benefit from that? Or the local tourist service? Or your grandma? Come up with your own re-use idea in just 90 minutes. Maybe win a prize, definitely have fun. Tue, 9 March (16.00-18.00): The base API for open data: linked Data Event Streams #Q&A # expert
What’s the best API to share a dataset? Many examples from different worlds exist, such as SPARQL, OGC WFS, GraphQL or Cypher, but all of them try to do way too much at once. With Linked Data Event Streams the Linked Data team at IDLab goes back to the core tasks of an open data publisher, to then build up all possible necessary functionality. Examples of this approach: the European Railway sector, the Address registry in Flanders & The Netherlands, etc. Thu, 11March (13.00-14.15): Open Data As Part of Social Justice Movement #roundtable #intermediate
The open data movement has been hailed as the game-changer, though it hasn’t lived up to the hype. One of the main reasons is the phenomenon of “open-washing” - having evidence for data-driven decision making with no context around data. This incompleteness then causes scenarios where open data echos the injustices and power imbalances in society. Our session introduces context metadata as a solution and a way to acknowledge the constructed nature of data. Thu, 11March (16.30-17.15): Success through openness in digital design #keynote #intermediate
As digital design matures, more aspects of it are opening up to a wider audience. More and more companies are embracing an open design strategy, or see open design as a key point in their success story. In this session I would like to present examples of how design is opening up and discuss how open design can lead to a better Belgium. Mon, 15 March (11.00-11.45): Sharing open (road) data in Flanders: The TN-ITS way #keynote #intermediate
Europe is getting ready to deploy Speed Assistance as mandatory safety equipment in vehicles from 2022. Road authorities are supporting this by providing access to (changes) of road attributes as speed limits & traffic signs, as Open Data. The TN-ITS association is promoting that such data types become available and accessible in a harmonized way by defining a technical specification for the data exchange and by bringing government and industry stakeholders together. The Flemish Government is playing a prominent role in this initiative, as this session will testify. Mon, 15 March (15.00-15.45): Ethics in Action: responsible use of location data #Q&A #intermediate
We hope to inspire data users, data providers, policy makers and decision makers to (re)consider the way they use and rely on location data. In this talk we will discuss the different values that are crucial to a responsible use of location data. We will do so based on our findings and experiences from developing a framework on this topic (a project still in progress). For a taste of our session, please visit: the consultation version of the framework , and: our international collaborations . Wed, 17 March (11.00-11.45): PROBE: policies fit for humans and machines #keynote #intermediate
PROBE (proactive disclosure of information in an open government) is a VLAIO funded project that aims to make the governmental decision-making process more open and accessible. When the text from policies and decisions is readable for machines, the information that is present within can be made more easily available for humans. In this project, the video and audio content of the local council meetings that is being transferred to text will serve as an additional source of information. And we’ll be exploring whether we can derive more insights from unstructured information when using AI. Wed, 17 March (16.45-18.00): Open cultural data in citizen science #roundtable #intermediate
Citizen science actively involves members of the public in open research. This roundtable discusses citizen participation and citizen science practices in the cultural heritage field, in light of open data/open science. Fri, 19 March (11.00-11.45): Actionable steps towards distributed data for your organistion #keynote #intermediate
"Data is power!", the open data preacher says. But how do you make steps towards distributed information in your company? How do you transition towards technologies like SOLID in tangible steps? Our experience shows the stepping stones across the river, towards an ecosystem of fully distributed data. It's not a big bang, it's a path to tangibly change the default from centralized to distributed.Join us as we explain the steps to take towards data empowerment. Fri, 19 March (13.00-13.45): Everybody wins but who's paying? #keynote #intermediate
The Open Fields Foundation is a new organization that does not aim for profit but does understand the importance of financial health and viability. With projects that focus on bundling the powers of tech and active citizenship to make the world more open and fair, the question arises: everyone wins, but who pays? In this session, we'll explore and discuss new forms of working with money as a non-profit focused on working open. Mon, 22 March (11.00-12.15): Accessing and valorizing health data in Belgium #roundtable #intermediate
Belgium has a rich health information landscape, with valuable information from administrative sources (e.g., health care use, mortality and causes of death, social security) as well as population health surveys and surveillance systems. These different sources are managed by a variety of academic and governmental actors, and provide a multitude of opportunities for scientific valorisation. Accessing these data is however subject to a number of legal, technical and ethical premises, which can sometimes be difficult to decipher. In order to valorize the current Belgian health information landscape, there is thus a need to strengthen the visibility of the landscape, and to build capacity in the different steps along the data access pathway. Mon, 22 March (16.30-17.15): How to be collaborative and digital #Q&A #beginner
In 2021, much has happened due to Covid-19. This has been both exciting and scary, as some potentials are finally being reached, but also some risks ignored. This is because of the pressure to find solutions in an emergency. So, what are the next steps for progress and improvement? The Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) has defined 9 principles which can support the critical review and development process. This session will be an open discussion on these principles. Wed, 24 March (11.00-11.45): Work Zones for Open Science #keynote #intermediate
This talk will briefly introduce the bigger picture, the distant goals of "Open Science". Only to layout some challenging gaps in the available tools and systems: spots in the landscape fenced off as "working zones". By providing some suggestions towards (engineering-) solutions and opening the floor to interactive reflection on those. The hoped outcome is to collaboratively sketch out the beginnings of the architectural plans that could turn these zones into fruitful (open) construction sites. After that, we might be handing out helmets to those willing to step in. Wed, 24 March (15.00-15.45): Development of a Flemish AP for Research Datasets in FRIS #keynote #intermediate
In Flanders, RPOs are required to provide information on publicly financed research to the Flemish Research Information Space (FRIS, researchportal.be ). Recently, an Application profile for research datasets was developed by the Flemish Open Science Board (FOSB) WG Metadata and Standardization, with emphasis on achieving interoperability among stakeholders’ existing metadata schemes and research information infrastructures. Fri, 26 March (10.00-11.15): Personal Data Governance: towards a fair data economy #roundtable #intermediate
Personal data is becoming more important in everyday life as we have noticed in recent Twitter, Whatsapp and Google versus Australia battles. In the citizen-centric fair data economy, we see new Governance models emerge that potentially have an important impact on our society. We will introduce a few innovative initiatives, by practitioners, and invite thought leaders on the subject from a BLTS- Business legal, technology and society standpoint. Fri, 26 March (15.00-15.45): Open public sector innovation #keynote #beginner
Inside view through a triptych about digital public sector innovation : - Open and collaborative mindsets allowing the development of a groundbreaking digital public service and traditional ones almost destroying it; - Public sector incubators with a true digital culture generating expertise, motivation and an avalanche of innovative digital services; - A non-profit applying open methods and tools to tackle a real, complex and urgent problem in which conventional approaches have failed, are failing and will fail again. Mon, 29 March (11.00-11.45): How we helped16 Walloon administrations take first steps in Open Data #keynote #beginner
In Wallonia, few municipalities already practice Open Data. In line with the Smart Region dynamic initiated by Digital Wallonia, we launched Ouvrir ma Ville, a new integrated program aimed at supporting local authorities until the publication of their first datasets, based on real needs and through the development of innovative projects for citizens. After four month, they published more than 80 new datasets ... and want to continue this new dynamic ! Mon, 29 March (13.00-14.30): Open and FAIR covid-19 data #workshop #intermediate
The development of tests, monitoring tools, treatments, vaccines, and other elements of the global response against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic depends on the fast availability of open and FAIR biomedical data. We will present and discuss three platforms: The European Covid-19 Data Platform for the rapid and open sharing of COVID-19-related biomedical data; Galaxy, an open, web-based platform for accessible, reproducible, and transparent computational analysis of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 data and; Workflowhub.eu, a registry for workflows, fast-tracked to collect COVID-19 related workflows. Wed, 31 March (hour TBD): Keynote and Q&A with State Secretary Mathieu Michel #keynote #Q&A #intermediate
More info will follow soon FAQ
Where can I find a quick overview of the line-up?
https://2021.openbelgium.be/ or via this shared calendar
Where is the conference taking place?
To keep things safe, Open Belgium will take place online.
When is the conference taking place?
These free online sessions will be spread out over the entire month of March to give our community the chance to participate in every session without causing video conference exhaustion.
Can I update my registration information?
Yes you can, if you have an Eventbrite account.
Where can I contact the organiser with any questions?
You can contact the organiser directly via email: astrid@openknowledge.be
