One week to #OKCon - see you there

TL;DR OKCon is now over, and we had a phenomenal time! Check out my Storify, the post on Opendata.ch (German),  and official wrap-up and OKFN/ODI announcement for the scoop on what happened in Geneva. Videos from the main stage have been posted, and there is more footage to come.

Next week the event we have been working towards and waiting for all year is finally coming to Geneva. I cannot overstate my enthusiasm for how much I would like to see you at the Open Knowledge Conference, where the Opendata.ch community will assemble next week from Monday to Thursday. Get a ticket if you haven’t yet! Workshops are filling up. We are for the first time hosting this international event and are counting on a strong presence from the Swiss openness community.

If you’re still asking yourself “why should I take part”, let me share a few personal reasons. For starters, I have long considered the idea that data could be a powerful lever to change the world. If all this exponentially proliferating information can be useful to us and people around us, then the data and our combined knowledge must be freer of restrictions, much more accessible, better used and re-used. I can in confidence say that I am now surrounded by an impressive and ever inventive community of people with brilliant, actionable ideas. At OKCon we will have a chance to learn from the wisdom of a worldwide network of people who are breaking the path ahead, marking a wide open road, who need more support.

People will talk about creating a fair and functioning society on top of the amazing ways information technologies connect us, the challenge of making key, current information universally accessible, openly licensed, and for the most part, free. They will explore new dimensions in science, journalism, culture, government and, of course, open dataconnected by the fabric of shared knowing. It will be a chance like no other to immerse in passionate conversations and get brain juices flowing. If you don’t believe me, click through a few tracks of the schedule, make up your own mind!

At the same time, we’ll be doing what we do best: taking on challenges, uncovering ideas, learning by doing. During these four days I’m going to be at the Law Mining Hackathon getting on top of legal open data challenges, and at the OKCon hackspace: hooking up sensors, migrating databases or cooking up visualizations. OKCon promises to be like all our Make.Opendata.ch events: motivating, mind-blowing, disruptive.. and much bigger. Follow @OKCon / #OKCon and you’ll know what I mean.

So let’s get out there and hear out keynote speaker Professor John Ellis, and many other bright minds. Let’s get involved. See you there!