On February 19, 2016, Paris will host #HackFrancophonie, an event which will bring together participants from over eight  Francophone countries and three continents. Different open data-based projects will be presented! Registration for this public event is free.

A new upcoming  open data camp is launched by Etalab and Burkina Faso Open Data Initiative (BODI), in partnership with the World Bank, CFI Media and the Open Government Partnership under a Common Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) umbrella supporting the proactive sharing of open data as the next revolution in agriculture.

The unifying purpose of this partnership is to make information about agriculture and nutrition available, accessible and usable to deal with the urgent challenge of ensuring world food and nutritional security.

Etalab (French task force for Open Data) coordinates the national open data and open government policies stimulating data reuse. In its turn, the Open data Burkina Faso is an example of an initiative dealing with a transition of government to open data,  a challenge that face many governments.

The agence française de coopération medias CFI Media provides assistance to public or private players in the media sector with a view to reinforcing the modernization and democratization process supported by France.The Open Government Partnership is a multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.

The GODAN initiative, launched in October 2013, is a rapidly growing group currently with 169 partners (from national governments, non-governmental, international and private sector) that have committed to a joint Statement of Purpose. This later stresses the importance of collaboration to harness the growing volume of data generated by new technologies to solve long-standing problems and to benefit farmers and the health of consumers. Following the GODAN’s idea of providing agricultural information freely, the #HackFrancophonie open data camp will  focus its efforts on presenting and sharing concrete open data-based projects at different stages of development, local knowledge and technical skills of participants.

All shared resources (included freeware resources, e.g. data.gouv.fr) and data (the new oil of the 21st century) will be used to expand geolocation data of schools and adapt the cotton sector to climate change. Associations such as Balai citoyen or Social Justice will explore open data applications – using electoral or extractive data, for example – with a view to improving governmental accountability and citizens' access to information.

“The achievements of this day will help to demonstrate how open data is a powerful instrument for the development of French-speaking countries and, ultimately, to create a truly open data Francophonie”, said organizers of the project. 

Source: Francophone open data camp organized by GODAN partners  (agenda included!) 

Source in French: #HackFrancophonie, un open data camp autour des données ouvertes par les pays francophones Follow #HackFrancophonie on Twitter!