Social Innovation starts by understanding the previously unseen dynamics of social issues. Open Data has created the possibility of discovering new connections between social, political, economic, technological and environmental issues and their impact.
This session will explore opportunities to foster a sustainable open data ecosystem in Sri Lanka. Innovators in the open data space have the potential to shape policy, promote transparency and create tools to solve some of society’s most pressing problems today and in the future. We will look at interesting examples from other countries where open data for example has led to the investment of additional educational resources to fix shortages in medical staff, enabled citizens to visualise their country’s economic future, and combined with interactive storytelling to paint a nuanced picture of its job market growth.
We will also explore the role of the think tanks and academics who provide an alternative source of specialised data, the journalists and graphic designers who transform data into information through visualisations and storytelling, and the developers and innovators who create the tools for citizens to engage directly with data. Finally, together we will map current civic challenges and propose user centred solutions for specific civic issues through open data, data journalism and data visualisation and applications.
