OKCon 2013 Invited Speakers: John Ellis

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[Photo: CERN]

We are excited to announce that Professor John Ellis (CERN, King’s College London) will be one of the keynote speakers at OKCon 2013.

John Ellis is one of the world’s leading theoretical physicists, and also a great communicator. He has been influential in setting CERN’s strategic direction and contributed to the recent discovery of the Higgs Boson. John Ellis is a strong advocate of involving non-European nations in CERN scientific activities.

OKCon 2013 is taking place in Geneva, Switzerland, which means the conference will be held only a few kilometers away from CERN and the LHC – Large Hadron Collider. CERN has always been considered a pioneer in the open science movement and a strong supporter of the open access movement: open source software has been developed at CERN for decades; Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web while working for CERN when trying to improve the information management system of the LHC.

Video from BOLDtalks 2013: John Ellis, The significance of the Higgs Boson discovery.

We are certain that John Ellis’ talk will be a great inspiration to remind everyone why openness in science really matters: because – as CERN has recently proven – it helps reveal the deeper beauty of our universe.

We hope you will join us for this and many other exciting presentations at OKCon 2013.

Early Bird tickets are now on sale and will be available until June 23rd, 2013. Buy yours now!


Over 250 proposals received! Thank you!

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The Call for Proposals will end in a few hours and since we’re too curious we’re already having a look at the submissions we have received.

They are over 250! And of really high level, indeed. You’re fantastic, they’re a pleasure to read. Old friends, new faces, groundbreaking projects, illustrious organizations from the World Bank to Wikimedia, Sunlight Foundation, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the closest to our heart, our Open Knowledge Foundation community – all willing to join us and contribute to set the agenda of open knowledge. We’re deeply honoured.

Next week will be hectic: our team of Programme Advisors and collaborators will be discussing into the wee hours to select the proposals that will fit the event the most and finally contacting the first selected ones. We will keep you posted as we hear the results.

Who are our Programme Advisors? Watch this space and you’ll know more about them soon.

OKCon 2013 Event Update

Posted by & filed under News.

The OKCon 2013 conference on Open Data – Broad, Deep, Connected is being held in Geneva, Switzerland in September. OKF Events and Marketing Team Beatrice Martini and Elaine Shaughnessy have been to check out the venue and to meet up with our colleagues from OpenData.ch – Andre Golliez, Hannes Gassert and Jan Zuppinger and with Sylvie Reinhard and Magaly Mathys from Lift Events.

The venue is at the CICG Conference Centre and is a great space for listening to our keynote speakers and engaging with the programme and for community workshops, exhibitions and events. Participants will have an area where they can give a ‘stand up/pop up show’ to talk about their own projects and ideas.  There will also be challenges and competitions and a preview of the Urban Data Challenge exhibition, a 3-city transportation data challenge between the cities of Geneva, Zurich and San Francisco.

GCIG Conference Centre, Geneva

We had discussions on the programme and were really excited that there were already over 200 great responses to the Call for Proposals.  They were so good that the deadline was extended until tonight (at 23:59 BST)! Also exciting is that the keynote speakers are confirming their attendance – so keep your eyes on the blog as Jan will be posting some speaker profiles next week.

We thank the Swiss team for their hospitality and for helping us check out Geneva’s attractions including a very charming jazz bar and an evening apero sitting in the sun alongside the river Rhone.

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Extending The Call For Volunteers Until 2nd June

Posted by & filed under OKCon.

Welcome Reception

  • What. Volunteering at OKCon 2013
  • When & where. 16th-18th September 2013, Geneva, Switzerland.
  • How. Find the call and the submission form here
  • Deadline. The deadline to submit your application is 2nd June, 23:59:59 GMT.

We are very grateful for the huge response to our original Call for Volunteers and for the amazing applications that we received.

However, many of the applications came from people offering their editorial skills and we need some more hands-on people, for all the practical tasks, that need to be covered during OKCon 2013. We also hope to receive some more applications from Switzerland and neighbouring countries.

This is why we have extended our Call for Volunteers until 2nd June. This is your last chance to join us!

If you are interested and available from 16th to 18th September 2013, please apply on the OKCon Call for Volunteers webpage. Deadline for the applications is Sunday, 2nd June at 23:59:59 GMT. We look forward to receiving your application!

OKCon 2013 Call for Proposals deadline extended to 31st May!

Posted by & filed under OKCon.

pre OGDcamp 2011 preparations
  • Event. OKCon 2013 – 17th-18th September 2013, Geneva, Switzerland.
  • Call for Proposals. Find the call, FAQs and the submission form on the OKCon 2013 Call for Proposal webpage.
  • Deadline. New deadline to submit your proposals is May 31st, 23:59:59 GMT. Results will be published by 17th June, 23:59:59 GMT.
  • Tickets. Early Bird tickets are on sale until 23rd June!

Dear OKF community,

You left us speechless. The OKCon Call for Proposals is due to end tomorrow and you’re filling up our mailboxes (and our spreadsheets) with dozens of amazing ideas and actions plus sending us e-mails to asking for last-minute information, Twitter messages to have hints about the best way to present a talk, and what’s the right field for it in the form?

So, excited by your enthusiasm and contagious energy, we have decided to extend the Call’s deadline.

You have one more week! New deadline: 31st May. And this time we’re serious.

Keep sending your most brilliant and groundbreaking proposals. We’re looking forward to reviewing them all!

OKCON 2013 Invited Speakers: Ellen Miller

Posted by & filed under Invited Speakers, OKCon.

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We’re glad to announce that Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, will be one of our keynote speakers at OKCon 2013.
As co-founder and executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, Ellen Miller advocates the use of the internet to inspire greater openness and transparency in government. She founded two further organisations, the Center for Responsive Politics and Public Campaign, that focus their activities in the fields of money and politics. Ellen Miller can look back at a career of 35 years advocating non-profit advocacy, grassroots activism and journalism.

From a recently published blog post by Mrs Miller, On the Topic of Open Government and Open Data:

Sunlight believes in open data and open government not because these are abstract goods, but because we want to make government more accountable to ordinary people and less subservient to well-connected special interests. We think it’s great that more consumer-facing data will be opened up by the Obama administration (aka “smart disclosure”), and we want the “operating system” of government open and free, along with many others. And to be sure, there are many additional benefits to be had from opening up government data including increasing efficiency, reducing waste, creating new business opportunities and empowering consumers.

But we remain insistent that a central if not the core goal of the transparency movement must be to shift power from the few to the many, by making all the information about who is trying to influence the process and what they get out the other end more accessible to all.

From the Gov 2.0 Summit 2010, from her talk Open Government Scorecard:

We can’t wait to attend her talk at OKCon in September! And we’ll be happy to have you joining us, too.

Early Bird tickets are now on sale and will be available until June 23rd, 2013. Buy yours now!