Canadian Open Data Summit

The Canadian Open Data Summit introduced practitioners, champions, and entrants to professional development in data for the public good. The Summit featured the following focus areas:

• Data-Driven Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development
• Indigenous Data Sovereignty
• Open Data on the Front Lines of Climate Change

Carolina Rossini, Director of Partnerships and Research at the Datasphere Initiative, Kassy Raymond, Technical Manager, GBAD and Fellow at the Datasphere Initiative, and Johannes Friedrich, Director of Climate Data and Manager of Climate Watch, World Resources Institute, spoke at the session “Moving beyond open, the value of holistic data governance in times of crisis”.

This session explored how data governance models and frameworks impact the ways in which data can be leveraged to tackle global challenges such as climate change. Today few mechanisms exist to bridge policy silos and the gaps between technology developments and regulatory frameworks. This explains the struggle to address the challenges of our data-driven society and responsibly unlock the value of data.

Taking stock of lessons learned from data access and management across sectors, panelists shared why holistic approaches to data governance are essential for effective open data.

This is particularly true when there is a need to share data amongst disciplines, as is the case for the numerous innovations and initiatives tackling climate change, and for related challenges at the intersection of human, animal, and environmental health, or “One Health”.

To foster knowledge sharing and capacity building, participants were invited during a Q&A to share their own open data innovations supporting projects, and participate in a discussion with speakers on how regulatory frictions and bottlenecks can be tackled within sectors from trade, mobility, and animal, human, and environmental health.