Open Data Workshop for Development

February 22, 2014 was designated as International Open Data Day (International Open Data Day), with Bandung being one of 109 cities worldwide to celebrate the event. Meanwhile, STEI ITB, in collaboration with the World Bank and IndonesiaWISE, held an Open Data Workshop for Development, attended by various groups, including academics, students, the IT community, and e-entrepreneurs.

The current boom in Open Data is part of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) initiative, which has been followed by 60 member countries and continues to grow, with Indonesia becoming the OGP Lead Chair since 2013. Open Data began with the need for open data from the scientific community that can be used together and then developed to include government data that is in the public domain that needs to be opened to increase public transparency, reduce corruption, and increase public participation in the use and access of open data for the improvement and equitable distribution of development in Indonesia and other developing countries in general.

The Open Data Workshop for development held at Gallery 1 of ITB's East Campus Center was officially opened by the Vice Rector for Resources and Organization, Prof. Dr. Irawati, MS with a keynote speech from the Mayor of Bandung, Mr. Mochamad Ridwan Kamil, ST. MUD. who presented material on Bandung's ideals as a "Smart City" which places open government as one of the 5 milestones that Bandung must take towards becoming a Smart City, namely infrastructure, smart government, open government, empowering, and technopolis.

In addition, materials on open data were also presented by Mr. Mardianto Jatna from UKP4, Mr. Andhy Purwoko from Bappeda West Java, Ramda Yanurzha from Open Knowledge Foundation, Mr. Octavianus Tjiantoro from TNP2K, Ms. Noriko Toyoda and Ms. Cut Dian Agustina from the World Bank, and Dr. techn. Saiful Akbar from the ITB Software Engineering and Data Science Group. The event was attended by more than 120 participants from outside and inside the ITB campus and was enlivened with idea challenges to solve problems in the city of Bandung and open data in general such as data collection, data access, ICT communities, health, education and poverty alleviation. The event was closed by the Vice Dean of STEI for Resources, Mr. Dr.Ir. Jaka Sembiring, M.Eng. Materials and information regarding the Open Data workshop can be accessed at http://bigdata.itb.ac.id