Ghana has been selected to host the second Africa Open Data Conference (AODC) in July 2017.

The four-day conference will be held at the Accra International Conference Centre from 17 – 21 July 2017.

The first edition of the AODC was organized by the Africa Open Data Collaborative in September 2015 in Tanzania hosted by the Government of Tanzania and its people and supported by the World Bank, Code for Africa, Global Open Data for Agriculture & Nutrition initiative, Worldwide Web Foundation, MCC, and numerous other partners.

The event occurred over four days and included practical training for startups and entrepreneurs, high-level meetings of diplomats and policymakers working toward improving data for decision-making, planning sessions for advocacy organizations, and hands-on demonstrations of innovations fueled by open data.

The event attracted fivehundred participants from thirty-two countries and helped catalyze the growth and partnership of new actors into the civic technology space.

The 2017 Africa Open Data Conference in Accra, Ghana is set to attract over 600 delegates drawn from all over Africa and the world at large.

This auspicious event will push the leadership role of the private sector in supplying, using, and demanding open data, and bring together brilliant innovators and visionaries to grow their networks, hone their success, and connect with sources of support, and introduce investors and donors to an expanding sector that seeks and supplies open data to achieve development goals in Africa and across the globe and will amongst other things help:

• Identify existing and potential solutions for closing the open data skill gap in Ghana and Africa;
• Develop and expand partnerships that build open data awareness and drive use of open data among businesses, media, governments, academia, civil society, citizens, and advocacy organizations;
• Connect new actors with existing projects and initiatives that will benefit from open data, including the Sustainable Development Goals, Data Journalism, and Ghana-specific programs such as e-Transform;
• Improve the quality and re-usability of open data services including the Ghana Open Data Portal;
• Review progress made for open data in Ghana and in Africa;
• Launch new opportunities for mentorship, training, and funding of open datadriven projects and initiatives including the second round of the Africa Open Data Challenge;
• Promote the development and harmonization of data standards across Africa;
• Help build healthier communities through improved open data in Africa;
• Identify the kind of data regime needed for the most effective and robust systems for the implementation and reaching the SDG’s;
• Increase the demand for open data across sectors and including open Government data in Ghana and Africa;
• Elevate existing and ongoing work to be counted toward progress of SDGs Ghana is part of the Africa open data Community and signed unto the Open Government Partnership in September, 2011 which sparked off a quest for Ghana to open-up its government data. with some government data now opened for public use.

Ghana is part of the Africa open data Community and signed unto the Open Government Partnership in September, 2011 which sparked off a quest for Ghana to open-up its government data. with some government data now opened for public use.

For more information about the conference please contact [email protected] and Wisdom Donkor on +233-208128851 or send mail to [email protected]

For more information on AODC conference registration, please visit http://www.africaopendata.net/

Ghana open data portal: http://data.gov.gh