On projects on open data, the search for funding for public projects and on open data on public finances
When we talk about open data, it is always important to remember that they are impossible without the fundamental availability of data at all. I, as a person engaged in the analysis of state data in the field of state finances, and the entire team of our project, the State Expenditures, are engaged in regularly trying to convince the agencies responsible for government policies in this area that open data are available and that they are as convenient as possible. work.
In many ways, this is the key to the success of social projects. Find the "fuel" in the form of data on which the project can be built and find the "fuel" in the form of financing that would allow the project to appear and be supported. For example, the government spending project where we analyze government contract data is supported by the Civil Initiatives Committee ( http://komitetgi.ru ). And the government spending is one of the few technological non-commercial projects of the OIG and technological non-commercial projects in Russia in principle.
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I want to touch on several important topics. And I ask each of these topics to be considered as a question.
Non-state projects that create open data
Surely many of you have already seen numerous state portals with open data, pages on the websites of government agencies and much more that is in public space. on the one hand, it seems that there is a lot of data, and on the other hand, it turns out that most often this data is not at all or not at all what we are waiting for. Not data on the quality of life, not the data on the basis of which you can quickly implement a commercial idea, but something much more prosaic like vacancies and high-level statistics on the websites of leading government agencies.
At the same time there are several projects in which open data is created independently. Collecting and repacking state data or forming data by crowdsourcing. Wikipedia is the most famous such project. Another example is the Russian OSM community. There are also projects such as OpenCorpora, the Declarer, Open Police, the government spending and Metro4All. All of them are either created by activist groups or supported by non-profit organizations in Russia.
The question is - is this list full? Can you give examples of projects that do not consume or not only consume, but also create open data / API with access under free licenses?
Openness of state finance data
When people ask me about what is needed for certain state data to appear, I always answer that the main thing is instability ’and readiness for that often can take years. For this reason, it is always important, whenever possible, to “beat at one point” and talk about the same thing — this is also an indication that when you achieve something, you clearly understand that you need this data.
This is one of the main reasons why I always urge to participate in meetings with developers who conduct government agencies and participate in their polls. For example, the Ministry of Finance of Russia conducts another survey on the relevance of their data . This is a simple and short survey, with a few questions that can be answered very clearly. I will not deny that I personally (Ivan Begtin) is interested so that the data on state finances would be as much as possible in open access. This is the fuel that feeds our projects, we use them not only to find answers to the question “Where does our money go?”, But also to analyze how the state of our country is arranged.
For example, the availability of such data as:
It will allow us to upload more data on budgets to the State Budget and make such a special section with municipal and regional budgets.
And the data on the budgets of the CIS and the union state will be of interest not only to citizens of Russia, but also to all citizens of the CIS. Therefore, I ask everyone not to be lazy and spend some time on this survey and always participate in any polls of government agencies on the subject of open data.
And, in continuation of this survey, something equally important. On November 11, the Ministry of Finance and the Federal Treasury will hold a meeting with developers where they will talk about what has already been done and what is already available according to open data in the field of state finances. We, Infoculture, help them in organizing the event and I’m all who have already worked or want to work with this data to register for the event .
Search for funding
In 2010, when I was just beginning to look for data for the analysis of government contracts, I collected them by extracting them from official procurement sites in all regions of the federation. Then there was a situation of complete lack of opportunity to find at least some means and the lack of data that does not allow creating the first or less active project. The very, very first version of the prototype could then be created only with our own funds and with our own efforts.
Many other projects creating or using open data have a similar story. They are either created by volunteers, or receive grant funding, or are initially commercial and commercial and remain.
If you pay attention to projects supported by the Public Chamber ( http://grants.oprf.ru ) on open data or creating data, you will not find them. And for all the time there was only one such project on transparency of NGOs won by Transparency International http://grants.oprf.ru/grants2014-1/winners/rec3722/ with the complicity of Infoculture. And where we collected from disparate sources the maximum possible database of NGOs throughout Russia on the portal Pro NPO ( http://prongo.ru/ ).
In the world, it is not easy to find funding for public projects on open data because of lack of funding, but because of competition. Organizations such as the Knights Foundation, the Omidyar Network, and dozens of foundations in the US, the UK, EU countries, and Latin America support technology non-profit projects. First of all, open source projects and further from them projects that create and publish open data.
There are practically no such non-state funds in Russia. As I mentioned earlier, I came across only two cases of explicit support for such projects - this is the Civil Initiatives Committee. But I did not manage to find a single other fund, and conducting a study on the sources of funding for the subject of open data in Russia turns out to be a very depressing picture.
Why is this happening and what to do about it? One of the most important reasons is the state of the non-profit sector in Russia itself.
And it can be described as:
And this concerns both state and non-state financing.
And the question is what to do with it.
Personally, I do not have final and complete answers to all these questions. But I really want to hear everyone who has had the experience of finding funding for their projects on open data. And find out what was possible and what was not.
In many ways, this is the key to the success of social projects. Find the "fuel" in the form of data on which the project can be built and find the "fuel" in the form of financing that would allow the project to appear and be supported. For example, the government spending project where we analyze government contract data is supported by the Civil Initiatives Committee ( http://komitetgi.ru ). And the government spending is one of the few technological non-commercial projects of the OIG and technological non-commercial projects in Russia in principle.
')
I want to touch on several important topics. And I ask each of these topics to be considered as a question.
Non-state projects that create open data
Surely many of you have already seen numerous state portals with open data, pages on the websites of government agencies and much more that is in public space. on the one hand, it seems that there is a lot of data, and on the other hand, it turns out that most often this data is not at all or not at all what we are waiting for. Not data on the quality of life, not the data on the basis of which you can quickly implement a commercial idea, but something much more prosaic like vacancies and high-level statistics on the websites of leading government agencies.
At the same time there are several projects in which open data is created independently. Collecting and repacking state data or forming data by crowdsourcing. Wikipedia is the most famous such project. Another example is the Russian OSM community. There are also projects such as OpenCorpora, the Declarer, Open Police, the government spending and Metro4All. All of them are either created by activist groups or supported by non-profit organizations in Russia.
The question is - is this list full? Can you give examples of projects that do not consume or not only consume, but also create open data / API with access under free licenses?
Openness of state finance data
When people ask me about what is needed for certain state data to appear, I always answer that the main thing is instability ’and readiness for that often can take years. For this reason, it is always important, whenever possible, to “beat at one point” and talk about the same thing — this is also an indication that when you achieve something, you clearly understand that you need this data.
This is one of the main reasons why I always urge to participate in meetings with developers who conduct government agencies and participate in their polls. For example, the Ministry of Finance of Russia conducts another survey on the relevance of their data . This is a simple and short survey, with a few questions that can be answered very clearly. I will not deny that I personally (Ivan Begtin) is interested so that the data on state finances would be as much as possible in open access. This is the fuel that feeds our projects, we use them not only to find answers to the question “Where does our money go?”, But also to analyze how the state of our country is arranged.
For example, the availability of such data as:
- Register of expenditure commitments of the Russian Federation
- Registers of expenditure commitments of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and municipalities belonging to the constituent entities of the Russian Federation Information of the official website of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation
It will allow us to upload more data on budgets to the State Budget and make such a special section with municipal and regional budgets.
And the data on the budgets of the CIS and the union state will be of interest not only to citizens of Russia, but also to all citizens of the CIS. Therefore, I ask everyone not to be lazy and spend some time on this survey and always participate in any polls of government agencies on the subject of open data.
And, in continuation of this survey, something equally important. On November 11, the Ministry of Finance and the Federal Treasury will hold a meeting with developers where they will talk about what has already been done and what is already available according to open data in the field of state finances. We, Infoculture, help them in organizing the event and I’m all who have already worked or want to work with this data to register for the event .
Search for funding
In 2010, when I was just beginning to look for data for the analysis of government contracts, I collected them by extracting them from official procurement sites in all regions of the federation. Then there was a situation of complete lack of opportunity to find at least some means and the lack of data that does not allow creating the first or less active project. The very, very first version of the prototype could then be created only with our own funds and with our own efforts.
Many other projects creating or using open data have a similar story. They are either created by volunteers, or receive grant funding, or are initially commercial and commercial and remain.
If you pay attention to projects supported by the Public Chamber ( http://grants.oprf.ru ) on open data or creating data, you will not find them. And for all the time there was only one such project on transparency of NGOs won by Transparency International http://grants.oprf.ru/grants2014-1/winners/rec3722/ with the complicity of Infoculture. And where we collected from disparate sources the maximum possible database of NGOs throughout Russia on the portal Pro NPO ( http://prongo.ru/ ).
In the world, it is not easy to find funding for public projects on open data because of lack of funding, but because of competition. Organizations such as the Knights Foundation, the Omidyar Network, and dozens of foundations in the US, the UK, EU countries, and Latin America support technology non-profit projects. First of all, open source projects and further from them projects that create and publish open data.
There are practically no such non-state funds in Russia. As I mentioned earlier, I came across only two cases of explicit support for such projects - this is the Civil Initiatives Committee. But I did not manage to find a single other fund, and conducting a study on the sources of funding for the subject of open data in Russia turns out to be a very depressing picture.
Why is this happening and what to do about it? One of the most important reasons is the state of the non-profit sector in Russia itself.
And it can be described as:
- non-profit organizations creating technological projects - units;
- in the composition of the commissions for the distribution of grants there are almost no people versed in technologies;
- None of the funds I have have a strategy for creating an ecosystem in its areas of specialization;
- project cooperation, impossible without data availability, is not a priority for any of the funds
And this concerns both state and non-state financing.
And the question is what to do with it.
- Convince private foundations to support open-source ecosystem projects?
- To persuade officials to change the priorities of state non-profit organizations?
- Looking for ways of popular financing and crowdfunding of technology projects?
Personally, I do not have final and complete answers to all these questions. But I really want to hear everyone who has had the experience of finding funding for their projects on open data. And find out what was possible and what was not.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/270127/
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