Michael Bauer of the Open Knowledge Foundation recently wrote, “I am on the Road in Tanzania and Ghana to spread the data love. Last week Tanzania’s first data journalism event happened. The Data Bootcamp, organized by the World Bank Institute and the African Media Initiative, brought together international experts, journalists, civil society organizations and technologists to work on data related projects. In 2010 Tanzania committed to release open government data as part of the open government partnership. Nevertheless, the Tanzanian government has only released two datasets so far. One goal of the data bootcamp was to spur demand by implementing small data projects.”

He goes on, “The format was tested before in South Africa, Kenya and Moldovia and helped to raise awareness of Open Data. In preparation and during the workshop four more datasets were scraped and liberated. Further data was collected by the participants to work on their specific projects. Of the 40 participants only 7 were able to code – the majority were journalists and activists who never handled data before. Through the three days they received an intensive training in how to use spreadsheets and tools like Google Refine or Fusion Tables to tell stories with data. The data bootcamps not only consist of intense hands-on learning experience, they also are a small competition, where $2000 are awarded to the winner.”

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Image: Courtesy OKF