Caroline Burle recently discussed open data for development in Latin America on the W3C blog. She writes, “Sharing governmental information in open, accessible and structured formats can substantially increase transparency and accountability in public policy design and implementation. Furthermore, it enables broad social engagement in the process. Hence, opening data and acknowledging the demands of the population that arise from this is essential to promoting social equality and effective public administration.” Read more

Mark Wainwright of CKAN reports, “The last few months have seen a lot of activity in Open Data round the world, and a corresponding clutch of new CKAN data hubs and portals in Austria, Brazil, the US, and elsewhere. Here is a quick roundup. There is a (fairly) complete list of all CKAN portals here.” First in the roundup is Brazil: “The Brazilian government now has an official open data portal at dados.gov.br. It was built with CKAN by the Ministry of Planning, with help from the Brazilian chapter of the Open Knowledge Foundation. The Brazilian Senate has also used CKAN to set up its own open data portal.” Read more