Open Knowledge Festival: Who is Going to Finland?

The first Open Knowledge festival is coming up in Helsinki from 17 to 22 September, and Future Challenges wanted to send one writer to Finland to represent our community at this important event.

We wanted to find someone with a great desire and the skills to go and make a good impression on behalf of the Future Challenges community, so we asked our bloggers to submit short essays, videos, photos or anything else that answered the following question:

“Good governance, whether global or local, requires the understanding and consent of the governed. How can open data systems be used both to deliver information more clearly to a broader collection of people and to encourage people to look for and take in that information?”

We received several great submissions from Latin America, North America, the Middle East and Asia, and the winning entry was an outstanding essay put together not with words alone but with well-designed graphics, too. The winning entry comes from Ajinkya Pawar, a resident of India and a member of the Asia network managed by Anuja Upadhyay. Ajinkya joined Future Challenges in October 2011, and we’re happy to be able to reward his excellent work with this opportunity.

Take a look at Ajinkya`s story about open governance and the importance of transparency; you’ll also get a glimpse of his idea for a new network called “Open Book”.

“Governing bodies come from and are part of a greater civil society”

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