From December 3 to 6, 2024, Brazil will host Open America, which brings together renowned national and international events related to open data, open government, civic technologies, data journalism, and others. The meeting will take place at the Serzedello Corrêa Institute in Brasília, in the Federal District.

In this form, you can propose an activity to be led or mediated by you, in the track you consider most appropriate: the Regional Conference on Open Data for Latin America and the Caribbean (Condatos), or Coda.Br 2024, the Brazilian Conference on Data Journalism and Digital Methods.

To contribute to the preliminary agenda of the Open Government Meeting, click here. Participants can propose speakers, inspiring experiences and cases and suggest key topics that are not included or new perspectives.

Formats of the activities

Before submitting your proposal, it is important that you understand the duration and purpose of our sessions

• Lightning talk (10 minutes): quick presentation of some work or application with data;
• Short workshop (45 minutes): practical activity that teaches how to use a specific methodology and/or tool;
• Long workshop (95 minutes): long practical activity for methodologies or tools that require a more detailed explanation;
• Lecture (45 minutes): expository activity on research based on data and/or services or tools;
• Panel (95 minutes): discussion with up to three invited persons, addressing a central theme related to the data area.

Choosing a theme

This year, both Condatos and Coda.Br 2024 are being held in the context of Open America. In this large umbrella event, each day will have its own theme and its own guiding questions:

• The power of openness.
  Guiding questions: How to accelerate and maximize open data? How to stimulate the development of open technologies? How to advance multilevel governance structures? How are emerging technologies (AI, etc.) changing the open data landscape and what are their ethical and social implications?
   
• Better lives
  Guiding questions: how can we advance the openness of data, technologies and governments with the goal of improving public policy and people's lives? What is the role of data and technology in contexts of democratic and climate crisis? How can human rights be guaranteed in a digital world undergoing intense transformation?
   
• The future is open
  Guiding questions: What were the lessons learned and dialogues built? What are the main concerns for the future? What opportunities should we seize? Which actors to involve? How can we ensure public policies that promote openness? Which technologies should we keep an eye on?

Proposing your idea

Our experience shows that it is essential to take care in the way activities are presented in the program. A good description is light and fun, clearly explains why the activity is important, what the person will get out of it and what they need to know to get the most out of it (prerequisites, if any). 

Refer to previous examples of activities to inspire your proposal:

The lone wolf’s essential toolkit: In this workshop, participants will get an overview of the main tools and techniques used in all stages of the data workflow: from collection to presentation. Using examples from published stories, they will see that even with small teams, big data-driven reporting is possible. There are no prerequisites to participate.

No more ctrl+c/ctrl+v: data scraping with Google Sheets: How many times have you been frustrated because the information you wanted was spread out in several places, but you didn't have time to copy and paste it all into one table? No more sadness! Let the robots do the work for you. In this workshop, you will learn the basics of scraping information from websites (and how to create wonderful tables automatically), taking advantage of powerful free tools. Oh, and you don't need to know anything about programming!

Who can submit proposals for activities?

Anyone can submit a proposal, but we will give priority to applications that ensure the diversity of the event in its various dimensions, such as race, geography and gender.

If you have any questions, please send them to contato@americaaberta.org.

This Call for Papers closed on 2024-09-15 23:59 (Brazil/East).