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June 2012

A conversation with Zoellick about Open Data

Neil Fantom's picture

A couple of weeks ago some of the original members of the team that helped make the World Bank's data freely accessible and open had an opportunity to meet with the outgoing President of the World Bank, Bob Zoellick; his enthusiasm and commitment to modernizing the World Bank and making it more open has been a key factor in the success of the Bank's Open Data Initiative – and some regard it as a hallmark of his tenure.

He was keen to thank the many people that came together behind the common objective of making the Bank's data easier to find and easier to use. And he had a question for us: what's next? We've posted some thoughts about that before, but what did we tell the President?

Open Data team June 2012

Integrating the Bank's Open Data

Tim Herzog's picture

One of our goals in the next year is to make World Bank open data easier to find and use. As a start, we recently redesigned the country pages on data.worldbank.org to showcase other open data resources, such as Projects, Finances, Mapping For Results, Microdata, and the Climate Change Knowledge Portal. From any country page, you can now preview the data and navigate to the corresponding country page on any of these other sites.

Your Top 5 questions about World Bank Open Data

Maryna Taran's picture

This page in Spanish | French | Arabic | Chinese

When the World Bank opened its doors and launched the Open Data Initiative two years ago, our Data Help Desk was flooded with questions, requests and comments from students, researchers, journalists, economists, statisticians and more. The demand for our data has only grown, and right now, our team answers around a thousand data-related queries a month by email and phone.

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Meet the World Bank Open Data Helpdesk Team

 

Data and Feedback for Development

Tariq Khokhar's picture

This post is authored by World Bank Managing Director Caroline Anstey and originally appeared on the Voices blog - please leave any comments there.

Even a cursory glance at the Internet would tell you there is a lot going on in the Bank on Open Development. Add in cutting edge approaches using SMS messaging by Think Tanks, CSOs and Foundations and you quickly see that mapping for results, crowd-sourcing, beneficiary feedback, and Open Data hold out enormous promise of leveraging technology for more effective development - as the technology grows and cheapens, we've all only begun to scratch the surface of its full potential.   

The Power of Open: Crowd-Sourced Ideas & Crowd-Powered Solutions

Samuel Lee's picture

#DDC2012 + #RHoK - The people spoke, financial data was published, and answers were developed.

What did you do this weekend? How was your weekend? For most of us, these are simple routine questions which often warrant rote and unrehearsed responses: “fine,” “great,” and perhaps even a nonchalant, “not bad.” However, those who took part in the World Bank Finances Development Data Challenge (DDC) on Friday and Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) on Saturday & Sunday were not only witness to but a part of an extraordinary series of events that displayed the power of crowd-sourced ideas and solutions. They might tell the story of an amazing three days, a story of collective passion, resolve, collaboration, and results. It is the story of how an idea was formed, empowered, and developed over what was collectively just over twenty-four hours.