[HOT] One for the NGOs and people in Africa

[john whelan]

Yesterday one of my local Universities was offering free coffee and a
presentation on Open Data.  So clutching my discounted pensioner bus pass
in one hand and my coffee mug in the other I drifted along.  The Canadian
Treasury Board did a presentation at the Ottawa International Open Data
conference so they are familiar with the ground and I think it was Kent who
did the presentation.  Kent and Ashley presented whilst I drank my coffee.
It wasn't bad coffee either.

Also there was someone who had recently been working in Ghana with NGOs who
mentioned that what struck him was the fact there seemed to be lots of
different NGOs all gathering the same data.

Now we get to the interesting bit.  Mojgan very carefully went through the
Government of Canada's open data license recently in order to import some
address data into OpenStreetMap and those who double checked her work in
CA-talk mailing list confirmed that it is compatible with OSM licensing.

Ashley, hopefully I've got her email address correct, is currently working
with at least one African government on Open Data.  So it would seem we
could save a chunk of effort if we could get behind the Open Data side in
Africa and more to the point if Ashley can persuade a few governments to
copy the license then importing schools etc becomes a lot simpler from the
licensing point of view.  It might also be possible to exchange data
between NGOs.

I suggest you contact her directly, perhaps bug Kent if I have her email
address incorrect.

Note to Mojgan I Bcced you since your part was actually quite critical.
There is a fair amount of GIS data floating around in Africa but aligning
the licenses has been a problem.

Cheerio John
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