2018 AODP Dialogue and International Open Data Conference

  • 21 December 2018

The Asia Open Data Partnership is an regional event launched since 2015 with 8 partners from 6 countries in Asia. The 2018 AODP Dialogue is  the 4th Dialogue that is organized by Korean partner, the National Information Society Agency (NIA), and hosted by Ministry of the Interior and Safety in Seoul. The main of objective of this event is to create the forum to share economic and social value of open data and to expand global partnership among AODP partners. This year theme is “Open Data, Open Innovation!”.

The event started with the welcoming remarks H.E. Iljae Kim, Deputy Minister of Ministry of the Interior and Safety, following by AODP key issues and performance, presented by  Ms. Joanna Huang, AODP Secretariat. According to AODP Secretariat 2018 report, the number of its partners has increased to 16 partner organizations, who are from 11 countries in Asia. Those countries are Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Philippine, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam. We are so excited that Open Development Cambodia (ODC) as well as Open Development Vietnam (ODV) and Open Development Mekong (ODMekong), our network members are also counted as part of this regional partnership. 

During the Open Data Status & Performance of AODP Member Countries, the Deputy Director of Ministry of Interior and Safety of Korea, H.E. Sujin Kim started with topic on Open Data Strategy of Korea that covering on both Open Data Policies and Open Data Innovation Strategy. The Act on Promotion of the Provision and Use of Public Data or called “Open Data Act” was enacted in July 2013 and enforced in October 2013. The main objectives of the Act is to guarantee citizens rights to access public data and to support the improving of citizens qualities of life and to develop the national economy through the public data through the Open Data Strategies. At the same year, the Open Data Portal (data.go.kr) was established and operated by Ministry of the Interior and Safety. This Open Data Portal is an online information outlet gives the general public access to Open Data compiled and managed by central government, municipal organizations, and public organizations. Anyone can log into the Open Data Portal and utilize Open Data that is offered in a variety of formats, including data files, open API, etc. The Ministry also supports the startups through providing professional assistance to entrepreneurs covering full spectrum of startup development services such as (1)incubation of ideas, services and products, (2) Office space for entrepreneurs, Open spaces for exchange and development of ideas and testing services, and (3) Education, consulting and investment.

At the session of Open Data Status & Performance of AODP Member Countries, Mr.Thy Try, Executive Director/Editor-in-chief of Open Development Cambodia (ODC), presented on “Open Data to Promote Business Opportunity in Cambodia”, starting with briefing about Open Development Cambodia (ODC) and Open Development Initiative (ODI) contribute to Open Data movement at the Mekong region. Also, how ODC engages the open data project with stakeholders, private sector and civil society in Cambodia. When the project was initiated in around 2008, the most challenge thing for ODC was the limitation of knowledge on the open data standard, especially the standard of metadata and template of data to present for the users.However, through of years of commitment and enhancement, ODC and other members of Open Development Initiative now become the first open data platform working on 17 main topic areas to provide the data covering on social and economic development across the Mekong region.

He added that the private sector​ in Cambodia now is being more and more interested in the data and information for research and analysis to improve the business planning. Instead of taking a lot of time searching for data and information from different sources, the open data on ODC website has played an important role to support their research analysis through the dataset, infographic and interactive map layers that ODC has been aggregated from the public domain based on the development context in Cambodia as well as in the Mekong region.

According to the increasing of citation of ODC from the users as well as on the media and research publication, ODC could be counted as a central data center where all stakeholders, civil societies, researchers, journalists, investors and policy makers come to access without any restriction. Regarding to figure of website statistic, ODC has received on average of 55,000 unique visitors in monthly visiting the website, and 45% of them are the return users. He has also highlighted other achievement of ODC to promote the ICT and open data awareness in Cambodia as well as the region including the annual Open Data Day, Cambodia ICT Award 2018, and Mekong ICT Camp 2017.

Before finishing, Mr.Try has showed his positive vision of working together with all AODP partners to expanding the open data network from the Mekong region to Asia level, and hoping this year AODP Dialogue will be a great opportunity to learn and share challenges and experiences on promoting open data among AODP partners in Asia countries.

The next AODP Dialogue and Open Data Conference will be held in early of October 2019 in Tokyo city, Japan. The conference is going to be organized by the University of Tokyo in collaboration with its partners and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan.

For next year planning, the 5th Asia Open Data Hackathon will welcome every collaboration to invite an enterprise to set a theme and teams to create one workable application to meet the needs. There are two types of Enterprise Category and Head Category. For the Enterprise Category, an invited enterprise need to set a theme, and even provide their APIs or use the provided APIs and open data. There will be 3 judges from each enterprise and score the participants online. The selected teams will receive money award plus round-trip flight tickets to join the AODP 2019 in Japan, MoU, job or internship opportunities. For the Head Category, teams choose one theme and create one workable application. There will be 3 judges from each country and score them online. The prize for the selected teams is USD 1,800 plus round-trip flight tickets to join the 5th AODP Conference in Japan. 

It was an amazing dialogue discussion among the AODP members on sharing their lesson learn and experiences from each country in Asia on promoting the better quality of life the society through the open data. ODC is hoping to see all of you again in Tokyo!