OpenCity - Democratising Data of Indian Cities

At Oorvani Foundation, we empower citizens with civic info, tools and networks to build better cities. City data and driving data-based civic engagement is a key facet of our work.

OpenCity is our Urban Data Commons that has made  data on Indian cities easily accessible and findable since 2017. The platform currently hosts close to 900 datasets, with close to 7000 resources. Data for multiple cities including Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata Mumbai and Pune are hosted on OpenCity.

OpenCity also conducts regular datajams to engage with the data community as well as the larger ecosystem of active citizens and urban experts. The jams are focused on topics relevant to our cities like Urban heat, water supply, air quality, waterlogging and walkability. OpenCity has conducted more than 15 datajams across Bengaluru, Chennai and Mumbai with more than 300 participants from diverse backgrounds.

In this talk, we'd like to talk about our work, especially in addressing the following goals:

• How we democratise city data, enhancing transparency and understanding and facilitate civic engagement and public problem solving

• How our approach builds a culture of data at the local level esp, and mainstream the idea that public data is a social asset

• Understanding of OpenCity and what it does, how it fits into the goals of Open Data.

• How to be part of the data community through OpenCity. This can not only help bring more data into the public domain, but also build large data communities that can support and empower groups striving to make their cities better.