Sensitizing Nepal’s future leaders to open data

Partner: Open Knowledge Nepal

To grow awareness of open data, and how to work with it, among Nepali youth, the D4D Program supported Open Knowledge Nepal to conduct an open data sensitization program in universities and colleges around Nepal.

As the future leaders of Nepal, young people need to be well equipped to respond to the rapidly-changing global data scenario and harness the opportunities afforded by open data. To help fill the data education gap in Nepal’s education curriculum, the D4D Program supported Open Knowledge Nepal (OKN)’s efforts to sensitize young people to open data.

With support from the D4D Program, OKN developed an Open Data Curriculum, Open Data Manual and project website aimed at raising awareness about open data among Nepal’s youth, particularly focused on university students and teaching staff. The Open Data Manual compiles information from a series of online resources that explain open data – its benefits and technicalities – to those who are interested to develop open data tools and improve governance, civic engagement, journalism and more. To date over 600 hard copies of the manual have been distributed.

These materials were used by OKN to sensitize over 330 students to the technicalities of open data. This included interactive sessions that introduced open data concepts, sources and success stories in Nepal, along with technical processes for cleaning, analyzing and publishing data. Thirteen workshops in seven districts were conducted,  followed by a mini-hackathon which gave over 40 participants the experience of working with and opening up data on agriculture, elections, and spending. To encourage further reach and uptake of the materials, OKN is discussing with colleges and youth clubs the potential for integration of the open data curriculum and manual into their syllabuses.

For more information about this project:

• Access the project website here
• Read the Open Data Manual here
• Read the Open Data Curriculum here
• Access the hackathon open data here
• Read the announcement blog here