Open Institute @ 10 – A Decade of Growth

Celebrating a Decade of Growth!

2022 is a major milestone for us, as we celebrate ten years of bridging the gap between citizens and their governments, advocating for local and hyperlocal engagement to drive sustainable development.

We invite you to walk down memory lane and reminisce with us on the past decade and dream together with us of a future where citizens continue to advocate for the development they deserve, with governments that are attuned to the voice of the citizen.

#OIat10 #OIturns10

28 September 2022

We are ten! Here are our 10 lessons in 10 years

This week, we celebrate ten years since our founders started on a journey towards an open society that is managed...

We see a future with an open society managed by fact-driven citizens.

We are a non-profit organisation based in Nairobi, Kenya that collaborates with governments, civil society organisations, citizen groups and private sector companies to find innovative ways to achieve sustainable development. Our mandate is to work with governments (at national, sub-national and hyperlocal levels) as well as citizens, CSOs and other stakeholders to promote responsive governments that have the necessary capacity to listen and engage fruitfully with citizens.

A Look Back On 10 Years

Open Institute is Born

The concept of open data and open government was just picking up speed, and it was during the initial journey into actualizing an open data portal in Kenya that Jay and Al came together as conveners, working together with other players as part of the Kenya Open Data Taskforce. Their collaboration led to the birth of the Open Institute as a global think/do tank of experts which provided advisory and technical services in the open data and governance space, in the quest for government transparency.

2012

Open Government Partnership Summit in London

Open Institute took part in the OGP London, being widely represented and engaging in conversations throughout the event, but mainly co-hosted the inaugural Open Data Working Group meeting, together with Global Open Data Initiative partners Jose Alonso (Web Foundation) and John Wonderlich (Sunlight Foundation).

The three-day event featured government representatives and civil society from over 60 countries discussing governments’ transparency, accountability and issues relating to the release and reuse of open data.

Open Government Partnership Summit in London

2013

Open Duka Launch

Open Duka was conceptualised as a catalytic tool for transparency, accountability and governance. The platform easily enables you to make connections between people, institutions, contracts, tenders, and other gazetted information and can easily create and visualise relationships between different entities.

2014

Buntwani Goes International

The 2nd edition of Buntwani was held in Johannesburg, South Africa. Buntwani is an annual invite-only event where we bring CSOs, Funders, and Government Officials at the national and subnational levels together to have frank conversations that lead to collaborations and action. the strategies that make them work.

2015

Global Goals for Local Impact – Our Position on SDGs

We released the GGLI Position Paper that outlines our thinking on the achievement of the Global Goals – 17 Sustainable Development Goals that World Leaders committed to at the UN General Assembly in September 2016. The biggest premise of OI’s position is that we can best achieve the SDGs when we involve citizens at the local level in small communities of a few thousand people.

2016

DevolutionHub Release

DevolutionHub is designed as a one-stop repository for all devolution documents in Kenya. The project was developed in recognition that there is a need in Kenya, to have an easy-to-use platform where the body of knowledge that is developed on Devolution can be accessed – not just by the county governments, but also by Civil Society, the Private Sector and Individuals.

2017

Winning the SDG Action Awards

We were excited to win the award! We were awarded the Visualizer Award for our Global Goals for Local Impact Initiative, which was selected as the most innovative and impactful use of citizen voices and data to communicate with the Government and/or the public.

2018

EMC Data Desk Launch

Elgeyo Marakwet County is the first devolved unit in Kenya to establish a Data Desk, which is a government function that will collect, compile, analyze and disseminate the county’s data and in a bid to have devolved governments be more responsive to the needs of its citizens.

We developed the Data Desk framework with support from the World Bank and will be managed by county staff, also known as Data Desk fellows.

2019

Launching the Restore Data Rights Movement

On 11th November 2020, we launched the #RestoreDataRights Declaration: A Movement for Transparent, Accountable and Inclusive COVID-19 Data Use in Africa (“the Declaration”) setting out how we, together with 7 partner organizations across Africa, believe data should be used as part of the COVID-19 response and in post-pandemic Africa.

2020

The Data Leaders Fellowship

We established an 8-week fellowship programme to build the capacity of Chief Officers in charge of Planning and Economic Development, who are the data champions who work at the heart of the county’s data value chain.

2021

Launching Sabasi

Sabasi is a free and open-source tool designed to help individuals and organizations to collect and manage data most simply and cheaply possible. Sabasi is a survey tool that can be used both on mobile and desktop. It aids in simple data collection and is part of the greater ecosystem of Open County/Data Desk.

2022

A Decade of Partnerships

We started in 2012 with a dream, and here we are 10 years later, celebrating a decade of partnerships! We want to thank our partners and supporters; everything we have done, we have done together.