Balance of the conference “Resources for citizen-generated data initiatives”.
Las Naves hosted from June 19 to 21 the conference “Resources for citizen-generated data initiatives” with practical workshops to facilitate the opening of data from civic projects. The conference was organized by the Càtedra Govern Obert and the Regidoria de Transparència, Govern Obert i Auditoria Ciutadana del Ajuntament de València.
The GO Chair proposed three workshops for three of the challenges to be overcome by citizen-generated initiatives, namely, citizen involvement and participation in this type of projects, data sovereignty -who owns the data and how it is managed- and how to obtain results from this type of initiatives.
Taking as a starting point that technologies can improve our cities and empower citizens, Mara Balestrini and Lucía Errandonea. During the session, they first presented practical cases in which they had applied their methodologies in cities such as Bristol, Kosovo or Barcelona and then two working groups advised by them discussed two cases linked to the city of Valencia. The participants used the methods that both professionals apply in their projects to reflect on pollution and pollen and gentrified neighborhoods of the city.
In their projects, it is usually the citizens who decide the challenges to overcome, use functional technology that is not limited by their technical knowledge, collect data and decide under what conditions and with whom they share it. With all this, they aspire to find solutions to citizens’ issues; that citizens contribute, either by expanding existing data, contrasting existing data or generating new data.
On the second day, the expert in data protection Javier Plaza. He went through the differences between copyright and intellectual property, rights management and types of licenses;open He also answered the questions of the attendees regarding the protection of intellectual property in all its formats.
The conference concluded with a workshop facilitated by Guillermo Palau and Javier de Vicente with the support of Francisco Azorín and Eva Raga from the cooperative Fent Estudi. Throughout the session the participants learned to think with their hands thanks to the use of the working methodology called Lego Serious Play. The program uses the famous LEGO pieces to build concepts and metaphors, encourage the participation of the attendees in the reflections, take sides and provide solutions to the issues raised.
The set of workshops served to provide useful methodologies to the attendees, most of whom were professionals in the field of public administration, citizen platforms and consulting services.
As pointed out by the Councilor for Transparency, Open Government and Citizen Audit in the note published after the conclusion of the conference, “the commitment of this city to open our institutions to citizens is still standing, and events like this allow us to share ideas to develop tools that make the data we generate in our daily use of the city more accessible and useful”.
During the sessions there were numerous references to the report;Valencian initiatives generated by citizens (DGC).A study conducted last year with the support of the Cátedra Govern Obert and the City Council of Valencia where citizen initiatives and their characteristics were collected. As a result of this study, some of the challenges that have been worked on in the conference were detected.
The Open Government Chair is attached to the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria Informàtica and promoted by the Universitat Politècnica de València and the Department of Transparency, Open Government and Citizen Audit of the Valencia City Council.
