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On August 8, a new batch of 60 free and open source projects was selected for the NGI Zero Commons Fund.
We want to thank these project teams for working on the digital commons and contributing to open, secure and trustworthy digital infrastructure for all.
This brings the total of grantees within the programme to 494 projects. There are still two more calls currently under evaluation for the program.
Meet the projects! https://nlnet.nl/news/2026/20260808-60-new-projects.html
Open Government
- Details
- Written by: Adrian Offerman
- Category: Open Government
Now that eGovernment services are quickly becoming the default way to communicate between public agencies and citizens, citizen participation and engagement are lagging. This is often blamed on the so-called digital divide, i.e. a lack of skills, trust and confidence. The Slovenian Housing Fund, however, found that they could greatly improve the citizen engagement by actively searching for internal rather than external factors and mitigating these.
Read more: "Look for internal factors to increase citizen engagement"
- Details
- Written by: Adrian Offerman
- Category: Open Government
This summer, the Bulgarian Council of Ministers organised 'A Date with Data'. The theme for this one-day event was 'Open Data for Transparent Governance'. The programme featured presentations, panel discussions, demonstrations of visualisations, and other applications of open data.
- Details
- Written by: Adrian Offerman
- Category: Open Government
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Acronym: Open Data Bulgaria
Website: http://opendata.government.bg/
Start Date: September 2014
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Geographic coverage: BG
Abstract
Over the last year, Bulgaria has published 80 datasets on its open data portal, and with more to come. In January, the Council of Ministers accepted a list of 119 prioritised datasets that are important to open up first. We have set four deadlines for this year, when the datasets should be publicly available on the open data portal, all depending, of course, on the importance of the specific dataset and how ready the responsible agency is in technical terms.
The European PSI Directive is currently being transposed into Bulgarian legislation. Specific to the Bulgarian transposition of the PSI Directive will be the obligation for public administrations to prioritise data for publishing each year. So this government-driven prioritisation and publication of datasets will be an ongoing process.
Read more: Bulgarian open data portal driven by Council of Ministers and civil society
- Details
- Written by: Adrian Offerman
- Category: Open Government
Bulgaria has just published the first datasets on its open data portal. Currently, about 36 datasets from 26 public agencies have been made available online. The organisations involved were summoned to do so by the Council of Ministers. The Council even has a dedicated team to overcome resistance at the agencies and help them to extract and cleanse the data from the databases. The ambition is to publish another 100 datasets before the end of this year.
Read more: Bulgarian government publishes first open datasets
- Details
- Written by: Adrian Offerman
- Category: Open Government
Beth Noveck, the former US deputy CTO for open government and currently Director of The Governance Lab at New York University, spoke recently at the "Week of Public Innovation" in Paris. In her speech she told the audience about her experience at the White House and gave her vision of an open and innovative governance involving civil society.