Open Knowledge Belgium (non-profit/vzw/asbl), as local chapter of Open Knowledge International, is an umbrella organisation for various open knowledge and open data initiatives in Belgium. We strive for a world in which knowledge creates power for the many, not the few and proactively promote openness…...

Open summer of code isn’t only a summer program for students and coaches alike, it’s also a great learning opportunity to work on open innovation projects in collaboration with partners.  Students get to work on real-life projects while learning different skills and student coaches even get to polish…...

OpenStreetMap Belgium just released their annual report for 2020. 2020 has been a pretty busy considering the circumstances: A few successful projects: EqualStreetNames, Road Completion, MapComplete, … A few (online) meetups and mapathons Coaching and a nice result with the MapComplete project during…...

Last Friday we presented our project ‘HackYourFuture Lab @ Ghent’ to the Ghent deputy mayor for Welfare, Astrid Debruycker. Last year, she called for innovative solutions to specific challenges in Ghent’s society. With HackYourFuture Lab @ Ghent, we are taking our cooperation with Arteveldehogeschool…...

After more than 4 fantastic years at Open Knowledge Belgium, I have decided that it is time to pass on my role as general coordinator of the organisation and I’ll make room for new projects. I would like to thank everyone very much for the way we have worked together over the years. I can only hope that…...

Do you believe in a world where chances are equal and job opportunities are given to talented people, no matter what their background is? Hack Your Future Belgium* is a coding school for refugees and newcomers, active in different countries across Europe, and in Belgium part of the umbrella organization…...

1. The federal open data strategy The cabinet of Minister De Croo introduced a federal open data strategy in 2015 (1), setting out some generic guidelines. Unfortunately, these generic guidelines have had little impact in the following 5 years on the relevant policy domains, not on the Agency for…...

A virus is throwing a spanner in the works for businesses and organisations around the globe. At the same time, we are witnessing a surge in innovation, creativity and flexibility from all parts of society. Open Knowledge Belgium wants to take on the challenge and be part of the solution. How? With Open…...

Less than 7% of street names have been named after a woman in Brussels: launch of EqualStreetNames.Brussels Open Knowledge Belgium, an association advocating for the use of Open Data, Noms Peut-Être, a feminist collective advocating for more equality in the public space and 60 citizens have created a…...

We are using Open Data to build a map visualizing the streets names of Brussels by gender. We need your help! The names of public spaces (streets, avenues, squares and others) define the identity of a city and how citizens interact with it. Brussels suffers from a major inequality between male and…...

Open Knowledge Belgium (non-profit/vzw/asbl), as local chapter of Open Knowledge Foundation, is an umbrella organisation for various open knowledge and open data initiatives in Belgium. We strive for a world in which knowledge creates power for the many, not the few and proactively promote openness…...

On March 12th, the World Wide Web’s 29th birthday, 250 Open Knowledge and Open Data enthusiasts gathered in Louvain-la-Neuve, ready to enable access for everyone to a web worth having. The whole day was designed to get an update on local, national and global open initiatives as well as to share skills…...

On Saturday 3rd March took place the Open Data Day, for the occasion, no less than 355 events occurred around the globe. One of them, “Towards Clean Air with Open Data!”, happened in BeCentral in Brussels. During the morning, 8 talks on open air quality data were given by citizens, experts, students and…...

In the last few months, the open community in Belgium has had the chance to gather multiple times. Open Knowledge Belgium organised a couple of events and activities which aimed to bring its passionate community together and facilitate the launch of new projects. Furthermore, as summertime is coming, it…...

Last week Open Knowledge Belgium launched, in collaboration with Wikimedia Belgium, Civic Lab Brussels, a biweekly action-oriented gathering of open enthusiasts with different backgrounds and skills who work together on civic projects. Introduction to Civic Lab Brussels from Dries Van Ransbeeck How did…...

Belgium is lacking behind when it comes to opening up their educational data. Therefore some bottom-up action is needed in order to make this possible. As a response, an interesting Kickoff meeting about Open Education was held on February 15 2017 in Brussels. Data providers, data re-users and data…...

Open Belgium is a yearly community-driven conference on Open Knowledge and Open Data in Belgium. In just one day community members, researchers, industry influencers and government officials come together to discuss various open efforts in Belgium. Next year’s edition – Open Belgium 2017 – will take…...

Yihaa, I’m very happy to have recently joined Open Knowledge Belgium as its new project coordinator. Being the successor of driving force Pieter-Jan won’t be an easy job, but I am looking forward to working together with the Open Knowledge community and its partners on bringing Open Knowledge and Open…...

I remember it like yesterday, sitting in a bar to discuss joining Open Knowledge Belgium as a fulltime employee. I was a fresh off the boat social-media manager who believed in doing good through online community management. At the time I had no idea what Open Data was except for the Wikipedia short…...

After 10 months of figuring what we need to build, building it and then testing it in real life situation we can now say: W4P is alive! Or at least in a solid bèta. You can find our presentation in English here: Interested in hearing this talk again and do you have a location and or crowd? Or are you…...

Yesterday the World Wide Web Foundation has released the third edition of the Open Data Barometer. A collaborative research that covers 92 countries and ranks them by three key parameters: readiness (how prepared are governments regarding open data initiatives?), implementation (are governments putting…...

This is the Diplohack Datad(r)ive Webinar Blogpost. About all that you saw (or didn’t) and more. Diplohack Datad(r)ive Webinar from Open Knowledge Belgium on Vimeo. First and foremost, the webinar was recorded and is available in full on our vimeo. Check the description of the video to jump to the part…...

The crowdfunding market in Belgium is getting bigger every year and societal focused efforts are equally increasing, which we support with lots of enthusiasm. That’s why early 2014, iDROPS and Open Knowledge Belgium started to brainstorm on how we could potentially provide real added value in relation…...

Since 2016 is approaching rapidly, we decided to look back on 2015. We collected a few highlights from 2015, some from the Belgian Open Data scene and some that were important to us, as Open Knowledge Belgium. Will you join us on our trip through 2015? We wish you a happy New Year and an open 2016!...

In July, we told you about the earnest plans of the federal government regarding Open Data. Today, we’re happy to share the federal Open Data policy. Here’s a short summary. Below the summary, we’ve linked to the original policies. We’re talking about data that governments collected during their…...

Open data is gaining more importance these days. Yet, a lot of young people don’t know what open data is, or how they can benefit from it. That’s where Datawijs comes in. It’s an interactive video series, that introduces teenagers and young adults to the concept of open data. The Belgian platform works…...

It’s official, after working at the iMinds Start-Up Garage for two years we moved out to look for something we could call our own in the center of Ghent. Earlier last month we released a blogpost asking for office-leads in Ghent. The search was trickier then we thought but the huge response on Twitter…...

HEAR HEAR, we’re looking for a new place! Since the founding of our official non-profit “Open Knowledge Foundation vzw/asbl”, back in 2012, we have been blessed to have have found refuge at iMinds in the iMinds Start-Up Garage. It enabled us to setup a member base, have an official domicile address and…...

When we first read the results of the 2014 Open Data Index, we said we had big expectations for 2015. We couldn’t be more right: today, the federal ministerial council has, by recommendation of Minister De Croo and Secretary of State Francken, approved an ambitious federal open data strategy. Open by…...

I’ve presented Open Knowledge Belgium at the Open & Agile Smart Cities meeting in Brussels today. The meeting was more focus on Open Data than other kinds of Open. Here are the slides: If you give a presentation on Open Knowledge Belgium yourself, feel free to reuse the slides. @pietercolpaert from…...

Last week, we attended the closing event of Apps for Europe in Berlin. Over the course of two days, we evaluated the project that encouraged creators of Open Data apps to turn their ideas into a viable business. Our conclusion? We consider Apps4EU a success, it definitely had a positive influence on the…...

For the past few weeks, we’ve been bombarding you withtweets about Datawijs. So, we thought it was time to shine some light on the Datawijs matter. In short, our new project aims to get youngsters, age 15-25, to know more about Open Data. Not only by telling them what Open Data is about, but also by…...

Last saturday we organised ‘SWACKday’, a hackday attended by our #oSoc14 students and a few #oSoc15 candidates (hell yeah, new blood). The focus of the hackday was on building the new version of the Apps for X website as initiated by team SWAG during the Apps for Ghent hackathon. Which ended up in…...

At our conference Open Belgium 2015, the cabinet of Theo Francken (administrative simplification) and the cabinet of Alexander De Croo (digital agenda) announced that they’re going to work together to implement the European PSI directive, and where necessary, even go further than what Europe tells us to…...

Hey, I’m Sander and I’m the newest addition to the intern team of Open Knowledge Belgium. With me as a new recruit our intern workforce has been increased by 100%! Which means we can do at least twice as much work. I will be spending the next 8 weeks at Open Knowledge Belgium, working on various…...

Exciting news! The 25th of April, we’ll be organising Swackday. This hackday will focus on two subjects, being oSoc15 and Apps for Ghent. Everyone that could be an asset for the team, can take part. To top this all off, after the hackday, we’ll have a nerdy LAN party. Apps for Ghent and oSoc15 You can…...

Hi, my name is Lara, and until June, I’m an intern at Open Knowledge Belgium. That’s pretty exciting, don’t you think? The main project I will be working on is open Summer of code 2015, a 3 week programme where Belgian students create cool and useful stuff for companies during, quite obviously, summer…...

In our article on the 9th of December we’ve talked about Belgium scoring slightly higher on the Global Open Data Index. We went from 58th to 53rd. And even though we have positive aspirations for 2015 because we now have a federal minister of the Digital Agenda who is directly responsible for Open Data…...

According to the Global Open Data Index, Belgium ranks 53d out of 97 countries, going up from 27% to 39%. A status quo one might think, knowing that last year Belgium ranked 58th, but a lot has happened since. The Global Data Index, a tool developed by Open Knowledge, ranks 97 nations based on 10 key…...

Are you making an open data based app ? Apps for Europe runs an annual competition to find the best new apps across Europe that we can help scale into viable businesses. Who can enter? Anyone that uses some form of open data in their application or service! How do I enter? You need to enter your…...

In February 2015, Open Knowledge Belgium will celebrate its third anniversary during the Open Belgium conference (http://2015.openbelgium.be). This is also the time that the official functions within the board of directors have been doing their work for 3 years now. We will be open to accept new people…...

Open Ghent is an event where we invite everyone to the Lakenhal next to the Belfry in Ghent. Join us in this UNESCO World Heritage protected hall and find out how Ghent, which is also home to the headquarters of Open Knowledge Belgium, has been a pioneer in opening up its data and is still innovating…...

Open Knowledge Belgium is an umbrella organisation for Open Knowledge initiatives in Belgium. Our most important asset are our working groups. Open Knowledge Belgium tries to support these working groups working around a certain open subject in a loose setting by providing them help with submitting…...

Create the ideal application to inspire those around you to exercise and keep fit. Move Kortrijk is a hackathon that will revolutionise how people do sports or exercise to keep fit. But only if you can complete this challenge: How can we stimulate citizens to participate in sport activities or how can…...

Have you participated in an hackathon this year? And are you ready to build a start up around your application? Or are you still tweaking your open data application idea and do you consider turning that idea into a viable start-up? If your app is using Open Data as a resource than we have the perfect…...

After a first live discussion, a fruitful public consultation and close cooperation with our Open Belgium ambassadors we have what could be the 15 datasets used for the local data census. But before we implement this top 15, we want your final approval or objection if you do not agree. For those who…...

Verdient jouw project een e-gov award in 2014? Agoria ICT organiseert ook dit jaar de e-gov Awards om de meest verdienstelijke informatiseringsprojecten van de publieke overheidsdiensten in de bloemetjes te zetten. Naast een award voor innovatie, gebruiksvriendelijkheid, rendabiliteit en samenwerking…...

After launching our Public Consultation Call three weeks ago we have received 1533 votes on our All Our Ideas page Wiki Survey. Thank you for your contributions to this inquiry. We’ll talk about the results of these votes and how we’re going to approach choosing the 10 to 15 winning datasets to be used…...

The Dutch Open Hackathon, the ‘iron man’ of all hackathons in the Benelux is near and it still has a 100 spaces left. This hackathon, organised by Open State will go down in two weeks in Amsterdam. only 100 spots left for the Dutch Open Hackathon – 20/21 september 2014 in Amsterdam – http://t.co…...

With 10 Business Lounges happening throughout Europe this year, Apps for Europe is trying to find the best open data applications and startups that Europe has to offer. Open Belgium invites all the Belgian developers, startups and companies that use open data as a recourse to join this competition. You…...

Open Belgium has been carefully planning the release of a Local Open Data Census, which is a benchmark, similar to the National Open Data Census, as a way to measure local Open Data efforts. The goal is to acknowledge Open Data efforts of Belgian local governments who already have a lot of datasets…...

In the end of 2013, Creative Commons released the latest version of their licenses: 4.0. These licenses are the result of an intensive public consultation that started in 2011. After the launch, Creative Commons Netherlands and Creative Commons Belgium started a translation to Dutch. Before these…...

If you build it, he will come ~ Field of dreams It is April 14th, 2011. In the city of Ghent a group of digital creatives gathers in a bar, to attend the third event in a series of 10 of GentM. This recurring event focuses on the digital trends that affect our daily life in the city. The theme was ‘Open…...

Elk jaar organiseert de Vlaamse overheid de “Open Data Dag in Vlaanderen”. Meer dan 500 deelnemers uit binnen- en buitenland hebben de eerste en tweede editie van dit Open Data evenement bijgewoond. Dit jaar is de gebruiker van Open Data aan het woord; bedrijven, organisaties, ontwikkelaars en…...

So you have created a nice picture of a panorama in Belgium? Think twice before you share it. Copyright legislation in Belgium doesn’t allow you to share the picture: there is no freedom of panorama. This is why amongst others, if you look at the wikipedia page of the atomium, you will see a picture of…...

For those who are following our blog but haven’t heard of Open Antwerp yet, it is a free evening programme with three speakers about local city data and Antwerp on the 25 of june 2014, next wednesday. Please feel free to go to the Eventbrite webpage and register a seat. During Open Antwerp, Maaike…...

It’s time for the second edition of AppLAB. During this edition the city of Kortrijk is looking for software developers and designers to work in small teams to work on either a mobile or web applications. The goal is not to create fully finished products, but to gather inspiration and work on new…...

Thanks for joining Hack The Elections and Good job, you found our presentation! For those who want to follow the whole presentation on their own device and get access to the different hyperlinks, you can find it below....

Tim Esselens has launched BeLaws back in 2011. It is a search interface on top of all the laws in Belgium. We have done some maintenance on the server and have added a new feature: the forums. On the forums you can ‘cite’ a law (which will be previewed within the text) and you can discuss it with fellow…...

As you might know, well you should, on sunday 25th of May, everyone has to vote for the upcoming elections. With that in mind a new hackathon emerged under the name “Hack the elections” this saturday in Ghent. The organisers Engagor, a social media management and analytics platform, will release their…...

journalismfund.eu is organising the fourth edition of the Dataharvest+ conference next week. Investigative journalists, data specialists and coding whizzkids will once again gather in Brussels on Friday 9, Saturday 10 and Sunday morning 11 May 2014. The conference is the way to get up-to-speed about new…...

Spring is upon us in Belgium and that means Summer is around the corner. open Summer of code that is. open Summer of code? #oSoc14 is a three week project where we ask students to apply for the best studentjob of the year. We invite the best and brightest developers, designers, user experience heroes…...

Together with the City of Ghent , the Mobility Company of Ghent is evolving torwards open data and wants to open up more of their available data. There was already been a datatalk around the opening up of parking data, the possibilities of this data and about the expectations of numerous developers and…...

Last weekend was the eGov mobility hackathon Wallonia at the co-working Namur workspace hosted by our Open Belgium ambassadors Philippe and Jean-Yves. eGov Hackathon Wallonia, is not a one time event, but a series of thematic hackathons. This hackathon was about Mobility, the next one will be around…...

Healthcare is a very innovative industry, but its digital tools are still stuck in the last century. HackforHealth would like to invite you to join them in Kortrijk on May 9, 10 and 11 for the second edition of HackForHealth, event dedicated to building top-notch digital tools for the healthcare…...

After a long and intense few days at FutureEverything, the winners of the Apps for Europe International Business Lounge 2014 were finally announced on Tuesday evening at an awards ceremony organised by TechHub Manchester. This event was the culmination of the first year of the Apps for Europe project…...

We’re proud to see that Apps for Ghent made it to its fourth edition. This year was marked by using environmental and health data, prefixed by a nice addition of green datasets to the Ghent dataportal. With this blogpost we try to summarise this event. Last saturday, in the AC Portus building in Ghent…...

If there is one thing we learned from (co)-organising hackathons, it’s that they’re fast and full of interesting talks and tracks. Apps For Ghent is no exception and it’s this saturday. We give a quick oversight of the programme to mentally prepare and figure out what concept you’ll be working on this…...

This saturday it’s time for Apps For Ghent, a short 6-hour hackathon in the city of Ghent. I’ll be there all day and I want to start up a sidetrack during the event: An AppsForX Edit-A-Thon. What is it? During these 6 hours we’ll be editing the Apps for X WordPress template, used by Apps for Ghent…...

CHEST (Collective enHanced Environment for Social Tasks) is a Collaborative project with support from the European Commission and since 31st January 2014 they’ve opened up a call for ideas. The aim of the project is to promote the development of digital based innovations that have the potential to…...

Workshop Apps 4 Dummies Saturday, 22 March, 2014 – 10:30 to 12:30 Are you a proud citizen or fan of the City of Ghent with lots of ideas for digital applications but no background in programming or application development? This year you can create an app without that technical background. In less than a…...

We’ve truly been inspired by the contestants during the Apps for Europe business lounge during the Data Days Conference. We had 5 participants with a solid business case and eventually we had a tie between Carambla en Data.be. Both will present their cases during the International Business Lounge in…...

May the fourth be with you. Oh yes, the fourth edition of Apps For Ghent is right around the corner and to inspire the digital minds in Ghent, we’re organising a data-dive on the 11th of March. Datadive? Don’t worry, you don’t need a wetsuit. The data owners providing the data for the Apps For Ghent…...

We’ve blogged about a few hackathons before but this one deserves a separate category. So what is this mediahackathon? Simple, on saturday 15 March at 11 AM developers and creatives will gather at the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels for a 24 hour hackathon with different media sources and formats. The…...

Next saturday on the 8th of March, SITE or ‘Student IT Entrepreneurs’ is organising the second edition of Apps for Students in Leuven. Good news for all hackathon enthousiasts because even non-students can join in on the event this year. And even better, it’s free with lunch, diner, good atmosphere and…...

This is our last blogpost dedicated to the Open Belgium conference on the 17th of February. Here’s a small selection of the pictures that were taken by Thomas Smolders during the conference. Thanks again to everyone for your attendance and we do hope to see you again next year. [easy-media med=”427,42…...

Last monday, on the 17th of February 2014, the first edition of the Open Belgium Conference was held in the STAM Museum in the City of Ghent as part of the three day conference called DataDays. DataDays is an initiative organised by OKFN Belgium, Citadel on the move and LOLA to discuss the role and…...

“8 principles of Open Government Data” is the title of the now famous manifesto published on December 8th 2007. Over time, the word “Government” was often dismissed, and much pre-eminence was awarded to the word “Data”! Although an important concept, Open Data is all but a modus operandi to implement…...

Great news for all the developers, start-ups and development enthousiasts who use Open Data in their applications. Since yesterday, the 50 available datasets of the City of Antwerp have been expanded with no less than 210 fresh and new datasets. These new datasets are all about geodata and there is a…...

Although there’s a lot of attention paid to Open Data, we must not forget that the pursuit of opening public datasets and the corresponding open data movement, is still a rather young movement, and that each day people undertake steps and tackle boundaries towards a more open future. The big potential…...

As Openbelgium.be is a community website, the conference day has some social aspects we hold dear as well. We hope that all data-wranglers, local policy makers and open data experts alike get to meet each other and exchange their Open Data experiences. But the conference venue isn’t the only place where…...

As open data and open data projects are becoming increasingly important as value creators in the modern-day economy, it is nice to see that important efforts are being made to professionalise and perpetuate the open data community. For a while now, it has become clear that the initial approach – which…...

In June 2013, a revision of the Directive has been adopted by the Union legislator. Member States now have 2 years to transpose the provisions of the revised Directive into national law. But what does this mean? The revised PSI Directive provides a good legal basis to open up more public data. New…...

Final Call for Apps! – deadline 7th February 2014 Are you an open data based start-up? Apps for Europe is running an online competition to find the best app developers across the continent. We are looking for ideas that are: New Easy to use Orientated towards creating viable businesses and services…...

OpenKnowledge is what happens when OpenData become useful. MT @zoerobinson1: What is #openknowledge? It’s “what #opendata becomes when it is made useful” @hubwestminster #OPD14 pic.twitter.com/MZgGG4KHjF — Open Knowledge Fdn (@OKFN) January 23, 2014 Some OpenData providers can see this as a reason to…...

(If TL;DR: Share the Belgian data you want to see Open with us on Twitter through #ddays14) Most of you who’ve read this blog know about the OpenBelgium event we’re organising during the DataDays conference. And you might already know that we’re communicating about the event and the different sessions…...

The city of Kortrijk kicks off the Open Data and hackathon season with Apps4K. From 30 January 2014 until 1 February 2014 application builders and creative minds are welcome to join the event in the Buda factory in Kortrijk to work with Open Data, made available by the city of Kortrijk. During this…...

Some of you might have seen the video on the home page about the Open Belgium conference we are organising. So now we want to officially invite all the Open Data ambassadors and enthousiasts to Open Belgium. It is the first day of a three-day conference called Data Days and is organised by OKFN Belgium…...

Although Open Data is a known concept in Belgium for several years, according to the ranking on the Open Data Index, Belgium only ranks 58th out of the 70 registered countries. That’s something we at OKFN Belgium believe can be improved if we all work together. That’s why we revived OpenBelgium.be, a…...

The Belgian Federal Government is taking the next step to Open Governance in Belgium, which we applaud with great enthusiasm. The FOD Economy announced that in February, it will release the data of the ‘Kruispuntbank voor Ondernemingen (KBO)’. The KBO is the register that holds all the identification…...

Let me introduce myself. I’m Pieter-Jan and from now on I’m the new community coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation Belgium. I’ll be lead on projects such as Data Days, open Summer of code, Apps for Europe, SoLoMIDEM, The Datatank and many other projects. Above all that I’ll be assisting all the…...

The DataTank is taking it to the next level. New version. Professional support. The DataTank is open source software, just like CKAN, Drupal or Elastic Search, which you can use to transform a dataset into an HTTP API. The DataTank has come a long way, since the idea was conceived by Bart van Loon in…...

We have already sent out a Save The Date for Open Belgium, the conference part of Data Days 2014 in Ghent the 17th of February. As part of Data Days (#dd2014), we are also inviting project developers to compete in a hackathon. This is not what you’re used to though… The stakes are high! We have a total…...

The Open Street Map Belgium (OSM Belgium) community is joining the Open Knowledge Foundation Belgium (OKFN Belgium) umbrella. As OSM is now a working group at OKFN Belgium, Ben Abelshausen is joining the board of directors of OKFN Belgium – officially after the next general assembly in February 201…...

On October 21st, the 6th edition of Open Access Week kicks off. This global event is a key opportunity to bring open access to the attention of policy makers, public bodies, researchers, funding organisations, and the general public. Open access to scientific information increases the exchange of…...

On Saturday September 21, 2013 creative developers can get their hands on open cultural datasets during the co-creation event Apps for Culture. The day consists of a hackathon and a session of datatalks brought to you by some inspiring people sharing their experience with open data in/and culture. The…...

Together with Essent.be and other energy actors we’re organizing Apps For Energy this fall. During this co-creation weekend we want to stimulate and inspire developers to work on new innovative applications based on open energy data set. Moreover, not only developers are invited to take the challenge…...

This Monday, Summer of code is starting. It is an event where 20 students will work on various open source projects with open data. They are hired thanks to a lot of interesting partners: NMBS Holding, Essent.be, the City of Ghent & Digipolis, IBM, MMLab & iMinds, Mobile Vikings, Ontoforce and our own…...

On July the 4th we organize together with Flanders Tourism, DOK and the City of Ghent a Data Dive on tourism to share a number of ideas and to illustrate current projects. With this Data Dive we bring together data owners (cities, tourist services, counties, …) and interested developers and designers…...

During the Open Data Day on the 14th of June, Apps for Flanders takes place at the same venue. During this event, main focus is on the economic value of innovative open data applications . Apps for Flanders is part of Apps for Europe, a European program established by European Commissioner Neelie Kroes…...

It has become a tradition that OKFN Belgium plays a part in Random Hacks of Kindness: a weekend where programmers hack for a better world. OKFN Belgium will be present with a couple of Geospatial datasets from the Flemish provincial tourism organization. The datasets are on their way to be opened: all…...

Flanders has been working on their own Open Data Licenses. There are 5 licenses available in the guidelines: CC0, an Open Data License and 3 proprietary licenses which grant more rights to the people. We are happy with the licenses as they make decision towards Open Data quicker. You can find the…...

Good news for European Open Data enthousiasts: Member states of the European Union have endorsed new rules for opening up publicly-funded data to developers, businesses and citizens. The 27 countries agreed on the rule change on Wednesday, according to the European Commission, which is behind the…...

During the summer, a lot of companies hire students for a 1 month job. A student will work on a project that no one had time for before. Rumour has it that when you hire students, only 10 percent of the students are going to deliver something worthwhile. After the job, students go back to studying and…...

Apps for Ghent has been organised for the third time. It is the ideal moment for citizens of the city of Ghent to show that Open Government Data can make the life of citizens easier, better or more fun. This edition welcomed 15 teams. The teams invented concepts from a smarter government service, to…...

Communication is key in so many projects, and especially in community driven projects like The DataTank. That’s why in the past we have organized some meetings to see if our project was still aligned with the needs of our stakeholders. The feedback we’ve gotten from these meetings were picked up in our…...

After two successful events in 2011 & 2012 in Ghent, the Summer of Code ‘13 this year will be simultaneously organized in Bruges & Ghent. During three weeks a group of student employees work on innovative software projects which are delivered by companies in the region. The students work from two…...

On Saturday, the 2nd of March, Trissen, OKFN and Katholic University of Leuven organize a hackathon for IT students where they build applications that support the daily life of students. For this event, the initiating people behind Trissen opened their own data. Trissen.be is an information portal for…...

We love transport data. Our Open Transport Working Group, iRail, has just netted a front-end engineering contract for SoLoMIDEM, a project to develop an identity manager for iRail.be. SoLoMIDEM stands for Social Location Mobile Identity Manager, and is part of an effort to create a privacy aware online…...

We’ve launched an exciting new working group, called “We Open Data.” The group is for freelancers who have knowledge about open data tools (such as CKAN and The DataTank). They give consulting under the name We Open Data to local governments, ICT departments, and so on. The group has already notched up…...

We are really pleased to welcome three new colleagues, Michiel Vancoillie and Jan Vansteenlandt who join us as programmers, and Mathias Van Compernolle who is already coordinating Apps For X. Mathias is currently working for iDROPS that organizes innovation labs within the broad social sector and…...

ontoforce is a Belgian start-up founded in 2011, that has been actively promoting Open Knowledge. The aim of ontoforce is to use this technology in order to increase efficiency in global research into medicinal products. The start-up also offers consultancy services, and supports socially committed…...

The Flemish Public Employment Service (VDAB) organizes a digital battle. The Public Employment Service in Flanders (VDAB) is organizing a ‘Digital Battle’ for IT students. Until January 31, students in Flanders can send in their idea of a innovative jobadvisor for young people. What’s the purpose? A…...

Apps For X is the working group led by Lieven Janssen which supports people who organise Apps For X events. With a bunch of volunteers he is setting up various events next year, including Apps For Ghent, Apps For Belgium, Apps For Students, Apps For Geo, Apps For Coast with Apps For Flanders, Apps For…...

For the third time we organize Random Hacks of Kindness in Belgium. Random Hacks of Kindness is a rapidly growing global initiative encompassing a community of over 5,500 innovators in over 30 countries making the world a better place by developing practical, open source technology solutions to respond…...

In September, the World Wide Web Foundation published the first version of the Open Data Index. It is part of the Web Index, which measures topics such as communications infrastructure, policy, content availability, use of social networks, business use, freedom of speech and e-participation, based on…...

Recently someone pointed me towards a TED talk about “How the Internet will (one day) transform government“. In Clay Shirky’s talk, Clay is flirting with the idea that law makers would become digital natives and would use Github, a distributed and social version control website for software, for keeping…...

Open data is not for sprinters, says Andrea Mi Maio in a blogpost at Gartner’s. Open Data is the logical next big step for IT infrastructures at governments. To convince governments, the concept of open data is sometimes exaggerated to have an immediate impact and amazingly creative apps shall be…...

It’s been almost half a year since we’ve decided to reboot the Belgian Creative Commons affiliate. During these last couple of months we’ve been busy to get organised, reconnect with the different communities and setting up this website. So now I’m pleased to announce that we are once again an official…...

Antwerp launched its own Open Data Portal. The data is made available one month before Apps For Antwerp (8th of December). District borders for the city of Antwerp. Will this deliver a new Ghendetta at Apps For Antwerp? More information: http://opendata.antwerpen.be/...

If you need another reason to open another bottle of champagne: as of the 21st of September, OKFN Belgium has changed from a local group to an official OKFN chapter. Since the foundation of the legal structure in February this year, we didn’t only had some community events (a general meeting and some…...

The summer ended and like most children in Belgium, OKFN members are showing up with tons of fresh memories, but also questions about the coming year. I have just had my first post-summer meeting with a company active in the publishing area and the outcome was a question that was already keeping me busy…...

Dear students, researchers or just graduated techies, On Friday September 14th 2012 we are organising a Hackathon at the IBBT in Ghent. Are you someone who can’t help writing a couple of lines of code when you should actually be studying or sleeping? Are you someone who hates comic sans and wants every…...

I’m happy to announce that from here on out Creative Commons Belgium will cluster with and be sited under the OKFN Belgium organization! Since the start of 2012 the Belgian Creative Commons affiliation has been reanimated by a brand new team. The new CC-BE team consists of both people from the former…...

Yesterday we had our first data discussion at the offices of Truvo. Truvo is the provider of the Print (pages d’or/gouden gids) in Belgium, but also the largest Internet agency in the country. It turned out to be a very inspiring meeting. Thanks to all attendees and Truvo for hosting. What data? Truvo…...

Hi everyone, On Monday (the 14th of May) we’re organising an open data discussion with Truvo. Truvo is the company behind the Yellow Pages in Belgium. It’s an interesting opportunity to ask them about their data policy, technicalities, and so on. The discussion starts at 19:00 in the Gaston Crommenlaan…...

Apps For Flanders is a new project by OKFN Belgium to support digital creativity concerning open knowledge in Flanders. It is a series of events to build a community. Local events will co-operate towards the creation of new applications -in the broad sense of the word- with Flanders as their goal…...

Apps For Ghent is an event with students, hackers, professionals and policy makers. Together they discuss open data in their own way. Students and hackers get to participate in a hackaton with beautiful prices, professionals get to help and interview the students, the policy makers get to speak about…...