Press Advisory
Berlin/London, 9th June 2014
For immediate release
OKFestival, 15th-17th July: the global Open movement hits Berlin
From July 15th to July 17th, Berlin will play host to the Open Knowledge Festival, the world's biggest open knowledge and open data event. Attendees from around the world will flock to the German capital to share ideas, build tools, and strengthen the communities behind the fast-growing movement for open knowledge as a key driver of social change.
The theme [1] for OKFestival 2014 is Open Minds to Open Action, focusing on translating skills and inspiration into real change in the world. The main programme [2] has been crowdsourced from the global community, reflecting the participatory and inclusive ethos of the event. Sessions are arranged into three streams – Knowledge, Tools and Society – and will cover topics from climate change to online privacy, government spending to cultural archives.
This year's event builds on the success of OKFest 2012 in Helsinki, the first global event of its kind which attracted over 1000 in-person participants and 12,500 more online. Other Open Knowledge events include OKCon, running since 2007, and the Open Government Data Camp which took place in London (2010) and Warsaw (2011) and was a key catalyst in putting open data at the heart of the twenty-first century movement for government transparency. [3]
What people said about previous Open Knowledge events:
“OKCon never disappoints. It’s a community of genuine open data innovators who are pushing their governments to do what no one thought they could. I always leave this annual event stimulated, renewed and full of new ideas”. – Ellen Miller, Sunlight Foundation
“It was really a life changing experience for me. I wish it would have lasted longer as I was learning so much and having so much fun”. – Janet Maranga, lecturer and speaker, Kenya
“It will be hard for me now to go to other events, because I will end up judging them against the OKFestival, and they will fall short”. – Mr. Puneet Kishoor, Creative Commons, USA
“The energy, passion, and deep intelligence of all present was just amazing to be part of. I am very grateful that I was able to attend. This is some fine, fine work the Open Knowledge community is doing”. – Katrin Verclas, National Democratic Institute
ENDS
Press accreditation applications are being accepted now:
http://2014.okfestival.org/press
For all enquiries, contact: Press Line: +44 (0) 1223 422159 or [email protected]
Notes
[1] http://2014.okfestival.org/about-okfestival-2014s-vision-mission/
[2] http://2014.okfestival.org/festival-programme/
[3] https://okfn.org/get-involved/events/
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The Open Knowledge Festival takes place from 15th-17th July 2014, at the Kulturbrauerei, Schönhauser Allee 36, 10435 Berlin. Full info is at http://2014.okfestival.org/
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Press accreditation information is at http://2014.okfestival.org/press and interviews can be arranged upon request.
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The Open Knowledge Festival is organised by Open Knowledge, a worldwide non-profit network of people passionate about openness. Open Knowledge uses advocacy, technology and training to unlock information and enable people to work with it to create and share knowledge. https://okfn.org/
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Images from OKFestival 2012 are available on flickr here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/okfn/sets/72157628319216831/. Logos and banners for this year's event are downloadable here: http://2014.okfestival.org/press