Open Gov Hub is happy to announce Daily Workplace Hacks: A Productivity-Boosting Workshop Series

Did you know:

• it takes an average of 23 minutes to get back to the task you were working on after each distraction

• people spend an average of 28% of their work time on email (an average of 2.6 hrs and 120 messages per day.)

• workers who are more stressed at work are also more likely to feel less productive and disengaged

• Work overload decreases productivity by 68% in employees who feel they don’t have enough time to finish their work

• 98% of the population isn't very good at multitasking - in fact, multi-tasking can reduce productivity by as much as 40%

The bottom line: no matter your title, your organization's mission, or where you work, we could all benefit from tips and tricks to enhance our daily workplace productivity.

That's why this summer, we're offering 4 workshop sessions, facilitated by our very own Bruce Teeter (Hub Operations Manager), to help do just that. In each, you’ll get an overview of top tools related to each topic, see examples and resources, and have the chance to share your own recommendations and learn from others.

About this Session

The title of this first session is, Own Your Machine: Tools, Tips, and Tricks for Daily Communications & Organization

This goal is understand how all your workplace information is stored, how to access it efficiently, and how to optimize your workstation and daily communications habits so you can productivity access and share the files & programs you need.

We'll cover hacks on how to share and save files and passwords and use email, Slack, and other communications tools more effectively.

About the Series (Daily Productivity Hacks)

You will leave each of these 4 workshops (every other week this summer) with workplace hacks you can use as soon as you get back to your desk. Plus, a belly full of oreos!

• Own Your Machine: Tools, Tips, and Tricks for Daily Communications & Organization

• Own Your Time: Task/Project Management and Work Planning

• Leverage Your Tools: Web-based Databases, Spreadsheets, and CRMs

• Get Fancy: Advanced Hacks, Shortcuts, and Formulas for databases, project management, emails, and other common tools

In the new book The State of Open Data: Histories and Horizons, over 200 contributors have built up a picture of progress and challenges in securing the publication and use of open data across a wide range of sectors and stakeholders: from work on anti-corruption and extractives industries, to the work of statistical offices and international funders.

Join us to learn findings from this huge project and to explore:

• Key lessons from the last decade of work on open data across the world;
  
  

• The changing landscape for open data, and the impending identity crisis faced by open data practitioners;
  
  

• Actions needed to secure the future of open data as a sustainable development tool;

We’ll start with an overview of The State of Open Data Book from visiting co-editor Tim Davies, followed by World Café-style small group discussions led by authors of a number of chapters from the State of Open Data book.

Around 6.30pm we will wrap up and have further informal conversations over drinks as a happy hour.

Read more about the book here.

Join these authors for World Café table discussions on their State of Open Data chapters at this DC launch event:

• Shaida Baidee - Open Data & National Statistics

• Catherine Weaver - Open Data, Development Assistance & Humanitarian Action

• Jorge Florez - Open Data & Anti-corruption

• Alexander Howard - Open Data, Journalists and the Media

• Joel Gurin - Open Data & the Private Sector

• Christopher Wilson - Open Data & Civil Society

• Anders Pedersen - Open Data & Extractives

• Tim Davies - Open Data, Algorithms & Artificial Intelligence

This event is a part of an ongoing series of events at Open Gov Hub exploring the impact of open data. 

Drinks and refreshments provided.

Attendees are encouraged to register early as this event is expected to sell out. 



Learn about an innovative effort to promote local transparency and accountability from Ukraine's Transparency International (TI) chapter.

In this brown bag lunch discussion (BBL), bring your lunch and learn from Kateryna Tsybenko, an American Councils Fellow currently hosted at Partnership for Transparency on a brief fellowship in DC, who will present TI Ukraine's Transparent Cities program that she leads.

This program aims to raise transparency and accountability of the 100 largest Ukrainian cities. So far, 33 cities have already improved their transparency level through this program.

The Transparency Ranking of 100 Biggest Ukrainian Cities is a study assessing the number of information proactively given to citizens, the quality of preventive anti-corruption measures and an open attitude to the citizens’ inquiries.

They also encourage city councils to build constructive dialogue with their communities, measure transparency of the investment sector and advocate changes to city councils, organizing workshops for business, and together with ProZorro.Sale, they are forming the Municipal Property Register.

About the Presenter:

Kateryna Tsybenko lives in Kyiv, Ukraine. She has MA in Economics and in Nonprofit Management, and experience in journalism and banking. She Joined Transparency International Ukraine in 2015 as a communication manager and since 2017 she leads Transparent Cities program. She thinks her biggest achievement in this role was to build this program from scratch and make it recognizable and reputable among beneficiaries and donors.

Discussion questions include:

- How do you effectively measure transparency?

- How do you advocate for raising transparency in Ukraine and elsewhere?

- Does raising transparency improve the situation of corruption in Ukraine?

- How might city mayors use transparency in their political games?

How do we make tackling the world's toughest problems more fun? More effective? More accessible?

Game Genius is a DC-based venture that leverages non-digital gamification (the process of building a game) as a tool for anybody to build empathy, improve dialogue, and drive social action.

Come play-test and discuss ways to infuse games into your own cause or venture.

Whether you seek team building challenges or marketing activations, our goal in this introductory workshop is to help identify creative ideas by demonstrating game development steps using as an example OpenGov Hub's 4 core values - transparency, accountability, civic participation, and innovation.

Drinks and refreshments will be provided.

Did you know that these days, just about anyone can be sued at any time for not having a website accessible to all?

With recent lawsuits against some nonprofits, Domino's Pizza and even Beyonce, people are starting to really pay attention to website accessibility.

In this workshop, learn accessibility grade your website currently gets, and what you need to do to avoid being at risk and follow best practices to ensure your website can reach all.

This blog gives more background: (https://www.taoti.com/blog/tech/the-qa-chronicles-what-you-need-to-know-about-online-accessibility/)

The Open Gov Hub just turned 5!

So, we’ll come together to celebrate as any respectable 5 year old would - spending time with friends and eating lots of cake :)

Don't miss:

• Our 2019 Hubber Community Awards (who will win the Hub SLACKer Award? Best Oreo Eater? Most Likely to Clean a Dirty Mug? :)

• Our latest round of Ignite Talks - fast-paced lightning talks (exactly 5 minutes each, with 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds); this format is inspired by the idea, "Enlighten us, but make it quick," we will hear talks from: Forum One; the Open Government Partnership; and Emerging Public Leaders

• Ping Pong

• Cake, Drinks and a Taco Bar!

What: Open Gov Hub's 5th Anniversary Party & Ignite Night!

When: Tuesday, May 7th

4:30-5:30pm - Just for Members

5:30-6:30pm - Members and Friends



Do you ever have legal questions about your work, like:

- how to legally register/operate in foreign countries?

- understanding your tax reporting obligations?

- trademark, branding or copyright questions?

- confusion about personnel policies?

- the right format for MOUs/legal agreements with different types of partners, branches, or affiliates?

Bring your lunch to come learn about how the Georgetown Social Enterprise and Nonprofit Law Clinic can help your organization by addressing these and other questions.

This brown bag lunch presentation will include a discussion of the legal services offered by student and supervising attorneys in the Social Enterprise and Nonprofit Law Clinic at Georgetown Law.

The presenters are Amanda Spratley, the Clinic's visiting director and Clinical Teaching Fellows, Tyra Blew and Sunitha Malepati.

These and other questions will be discussed:

- What legal questions are frequently raised in your organization?

- Have you worked with a lawyer before? What was positive about the experience, and what could have been improved?

- How familiar are you with pro and low bono legal services offered in the DMV?

Hub member Accountability Lab recently had a great experience working with a team from this clinic and recommends them to others.

Come get to know new Hub member organization Fundamedios over drinks and Ecuadorian chocolate!

Frank, Andres and Dagmar are "the 3 Musketeers" starting the US presence of Latin American NGO Fundamedios.

They invite you to enjoy some drinks, experience authentic Ecuadorian chocolate tasting and get to know them and their organization.

Who are we?

Fundamedios is an organization with a board experience advocating for human rights and freedom of expression, press freedom and safety of journalists in South America since 2007. The organization has a reputation for taking urgent actions to help stop harassment and violence against the press; training journalists to boost high quality reporting and investigative journalism; and promoting open dialogue about communication, media, and democracy.

We have just begun Fundamedios USA to build bridges between journalists in Latin-American and the US and also to promote the same freedoms for Hispanic journalists.

What do we need?

We seek to connect and establish partnerships with organizations that work on human rights, freedom of expression, access to information, transparency and strengthening of democracy.

At this event, the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) will launch the world’s largest open public database on national oil companies, www.nationaloilcompanydata.org. Following coffee and a light breakfast, guests will be the first to see a presentation of the database and associated analysis, which provides new insights into these critically important companies.

National oil companies (NOCs) are massively influential, producing the majority of the world’s oil and generating trillions of dollars in revenue every year. And as shown by recent headlines from Venezuela to Saudi Arabia to Ghana, decisions about how to manage these companies can have major impacts on the health of national economies and the wellbeing of citizens. But in spite of their importance, they have traditionally been poorly understood, in large part because a lack of consistent and open data. This has impeded accountability.

NRGI has addressed this problem by assembling the National Oil Company Database, which features more than 70,000 data points on more than 70 NOCs worldwide. The database provides detailed information on the production, revenues, expenditures, balance sheets, tax payments and performance of NOCs, and facilitates comparison over time and across companies to support governance and strategy-making.

The global launch will feature a presentation of the database and two associated reports, as well as commentary from global experts on NOCs, transparency and governance.

9.30 a.m.: Coffee and refreshments

10 a.m.: Program commences

Extractive industry sites spend hundreds of millions each year on of goods and services – but how much is staying in host countries? What corruptions risks surround such massive payments? How can we help more benefits stay close to site?

Join us for drinks, snacks and discussion at the OpenGov Hub as we explore a growing frontier in the transparency movement for extractive industries: procurement. Mine sites typically spend more on procurement of goods and services than taxes, payments to employees, and community investment combined. The potential to change lives is huge. But so is the risk for corruption. What can we do about it?

The Many Lives of Lorenza Congo: A Case Study in Post-Truth Political Storytelling from the Bolivian Amazon

This brown bag presentation will explore how different – and mutually contradictory – versions of stories about Lorenza Congo (a heroic figure in San Ignacio de Moxos, in the Bolivian Amazon) circulate, and what the different tellings do for the people who are doing the telling.

Though the field where this is studied is far away from the political scene here, the topic relates to the “post-truth” moment that many are struggling to understand in the US today.

Looking at such a broad topic (the era of misinformation, etc.) in a narrow setting will help actors within the US and other locations outside Bolivia get a handle on it in their own work.

PRESENTER:
Chuck Sturtevant is a political anthropologist with ten years of experience working in Bolivia. His work focuses on the theories of knowledge that sustain “other” systems of political practice in the Bolivian lowlands.
After the presentation, discussion will focus on questions like:- How do we deal with the circulation of multiple contradictory stories?- Why do impossible stories circulate?- How does storytelling sustain political practice, in the Bolivian Amazon and beyond?

The event will feature a TED-style talk by Sanjay Pradhan titled Democracy Beyond the Ballot Box. Pradhan is CEO of Open Government Partnership and former World Bank Vice-President. His talk will be followed by audience Q&A and a cocktail reception. Georgetown McCourt School Dean Maria Cancian will also offer remarks.

*Note this event will be held at the Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy.*

Celebrate National Week of Conversation with DC's Purpose Power Town Hall!

We're happy to team up with Purpose Power and invite you to DC's Purpose Power Town Hall on April 11th from 4-6:30pm  - a special event that is part of a national tour of conversations offering a new framework for fostering connections between diverse community groups who share a commitment to civic action. 

This empathy-filled town hall invites you to flex your deliberative democracy muscles, turn strangers into friends, and connect your shared purpose with the allies who will help you commit to take action.

Alicia Bonner Ness is author of the new book Purpose Power and facilitator of this town hall series 

The fields of international development and peacebuilding have operated in silos for decades. Even though development and peacebuilding activities are often implemented by the same organizations in the same places, discussions have often remained separate.

What can development practitioners learn from peacebuilders, who operate in highly unpredictable, often ambiguous contexts?

Susanna Campbell’s research reveals key lessons, specifically about how to implement adaptive management and become more effective learning organizations.

Join for this book talk and interactive discussion centered on Global Governance and Local Peace (Cambridge University Press 2018), in which American University Professor Susanna Campbell shows how a variety of development, peacebuilding, and humanitarian actors are subject to the same performance barrier: they are accountable to global, not local, actors. The lack of local accountability prevents these organizations from learning from the contexts and the people that they aim to change.This reverse accountability may make many organizations designed to fail. How can this be overcome?

Adaptive management can present an important way out. But when and how do organizations really learn and change in complex political and social environments? While adaptive management is becoming increasingly popular in development circles, this research challenges some common assumptions about how to manage adaptively.

In this event, we will discuss the relevance of existing adaptive management frameworks to development and peacebuilding interventions, focusing particularly on the importance of local accountability in enabling responsive and context-driven interventions, and enabling more more learning-centered organizations.

Lunch will be provided.

This is part of an ongoing series of events about adaptive learning and “doing development differently” at the Open Gov Hub.



Presenter:

Susanna Campbell is an Assistant Professor at American University’s School of International Service. Prof. Campbell’s research and teaching address war-to-peace transitions, peacebuilding, peacekeeping, international development and humanitarian aid, global governance, IO and INGO behavior, and the micro-dynamics of civil war and peace. She uses mixed-method research designs and has conducted extensive fieldwork in conflict-affected countries, including Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal, Sudan, South Sudan, and Timor-Leste. She has received numerous grants for her research, including from the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Folke Bernadotte Academy, the Swiss Network for International Studies, and the United States Institute of Peace.

Her first single-authored book, Global Governance and Local Peace: Accountability and Performance in International Peacebuilding, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. She is currently finishing her second book, Aiding Peace? Donor Behavior in Conflict-Affected Countries, and has published peer-reviewed articles in International Studies Review, Journal of Global Security Studies, Cambridge Review of International Studies, and International Peacekeeping, among other journals. Prof. Campbell has led evaluations of the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund, United Nations Development Program, and the World Bank and has worked for the Council on Foreign Relations and UNICEF. She received her PhD from Tufts University in 2012 and was a Post-Doctoral Researcher at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies and The Graduate Institute in Geneva.

Discussants:

• Lauren Keevill, Governance Advisor at PACT International

• Kristine Herrmann-DeLuca, Democracy Specialist at the Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights and Governance, USAID

Panel Discussion on Beneficial Ownership and Corporate Transparency

The ACAMS US Capital Chapter is pleased to partner with Global Financial Integrity, the FACT Coalition, and Transparency International for another in our series on beneficial ownership and corporate transparency.

Join us for a morning panel with our experts as they discuss the importance of beneficial ownership transparency as a tool to combat money laundering, crime and corruption, as well as the broader domestic and international contexts. They will provide updates on newly introduced federal legislation that would require U.S. companies to disclose their beneficial owners, and share insights into the political landscape surrounding the prospects for this legislation.  Coffee and muffins will be provided.

Free for ACAMS Chapter Members, $25 for non-members

Meet the IMAGO Team, which works around the world to help grassroots organizations, social enterprises, and governments scale their impact. IMAGO's work with 15 organizations in 9 countries has helped reach 4 million people. And come be inspired by two amazing organizations working at the grassroots, who believe in making the poor the agents of change within their lives and communities.

This event will include drinks, food, and presentations from two organizations: Ajeec Nisped and Solar Sister. 

Ariel Dloomy (Executive Director) will speak about Ajeec-Nisped, a non-profit dedicated to social change and Arab-Jewish partnership, based in Israel. Founded in 2000, the organization works to promote sustainable development among communities in transition as a foundation for the establishment of prosperous and equal communities living in peace. Topics of the talk include the vision for the future of shared society for Arabs and Jews in Israel, best practices from peace education and community development programs, financing a non-profit through social-enterprises, and co-management model for a bi-communal organization. Ajeec-Nisped is considering expansion to Cameroon and Uganda.   

Neha Misra (Co-Founder and Chief Collaborator) will speak about Solar Sister, an organization that provides women with economic opportunity, training, technology and support to distribute clean energy to underserved communities in Nigeria and Tanzania. Solar Sister provides essential services and training that enable women entrepreneurs to build sustainable businesses within their own communities. Solar Sister has reached over 1.4 million people and kick-started over 3,400 clean energy entrepreneurs. 

This event is free and open to the public. 

Limitless is a foundation that delivers technology to others for the use of instant messaging as a tool to connect knowledge (doctors, psychologists, lawyers, etc.) with people who require that knowledge. On March 18th we will present two experiences where we use instant messaging for good in this brown bag lunch (BBL) session.

1) Prevention of juvenile suicide and homophobic bullying. With the Itgetsbetter.org" Foundation in Chile, more than 90 psychologists serve children victims of bullying via several chat channels. Today we are preventing 1 suicide a day for children and impacting on the public policies that the government is developing.

2) Legal support for immigrants and refugees. With the NGO Jesuit Migrant Service, a network of volunteer lawyers support migrants and refugees who could be deported. They use instant messaging channels to talk to migrants, lowering costs, geographical barriers and increasing the number of people served.

About the Presenter

Juan Jose Soto is the Former Head of Digital Government of Chile, was Advisor to the Minister of Economy, CFO of Ciudadano Inteligente Foundation and currently is the CEO of Let's Talk, and Director of Limitless Foundation.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/introducing-limitless-saving-lives-through-instant-messaging-bbl-tickets-58732963876

Celebrate Open Gov Week 2019 by joining for a stimulating panel discussion comparing evidence versus storytelling approaches that discuss the impact of open government reforms, in order to persuade skeptics and recruit new advocates to join the global open government movement.

How can both the use of evidence/data and compelling stories help support policy reforms? Our panelists will discuss these and other questions by highlighting resources like the Open Government Partnership's Skeptics Guide. The audience will also get the first preview of an exciting new partnership between Open Gov Hub, the Transparency and Accountability Initiative and the nationally-renowned nonprofit StoryCorps.

Lunch will be provided. Space is limited, RSVP to secure your seat.

Panelists:

- Stephanie Bluma - Chief Comms Officer at OGP

- Munyema Hasan - Manager at OGP (Knowledge, Learning, Innovation and Capacity Building)

- Michael Jarvis - Executive Director at Transparency & Accountability Initiative

- Eric Zimmerman - Director, Hattaway Communications

Join us to network with professionals committed to scientific integrity, free speech, and government transparency. Food and refreshments provided.

Transparency and access to information are essential to a functioning democracy. But science and science professionals have been under relentless assault during the Trump administration, compromising both the public’s right to know and Congress’s duty to conduct effective oversight. Censorship of research, efforts to limit the communication of federal employees and contractors and reprisal against employees who blow the whistle on serious abuses are just some of the tactics that cast a shadow on truth.

This Sunshine Week event will include discussions with journalists and presentations by civil society members that explore the ongoing assaults on science and offer resources to help journalists, public interest organizations, employees, and policymakers promote accountability, protect scientific integrity, and restore public trust in government.

Featured Speakers:

• Rachel Bergman, Web Integrity Project Director, Sunlight Foundation

• Liz Borkowski, Managing Director, Jacobs Institute of Women's Health Department of Health Policy and Management, Milken Institute School of Public Health, The George Washington University

• Dana Gold, Senior Counsel & Director of Education, Government Accountability Project

• Michael Halpern, Deputy Director of Center for Science and Democracy, Union of Concerned Scientists

• Emily Holden, Environment Reporter, The Guardian

The lack of a robust and transparent address infrastructure affected the assessment, emergency preparedness, rescue and reconstruction operations efforts for Puerto Rico during and after Hurricane María. 

Please join us for a conversation on Puerto Rico’s address data governance issues. 

An address infrastructure is an essential public good; the establishment and maintenance of good civic addresses save lives, is critical for public and private services and an important tool for fostering overall social and economic development. 

While the focus of this talk will be about recent experiences in Puerto Rico, over half of the world's population still have problems with addressing infrastructure. Come join us for this lively learning opportunity and discussion. 

Seating is limited. Please RSVP to secure your spot. 

Raúl Ríos-Díaz - ZIPDatum LLC, Address Consultant, Digital Media Creations, Inc.

Mr. Ríos-Díaz has been involved with addressing and postal issues for almost 30 years, specializing in Postal Strategy Consulting and addressing solutions for the Caribbean. Mr. Ríos-Díaz brings expertise in the development of local solutions to handle Puerto Rican-style addresses. He worked on creating the addressing standards used in Puerto Rico and was responsible for data collection efforts in Puerto Rico to create the largest delivery point database available for the island. More recently, his work to validate and geocode address data for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) demonstrated the value of specialized software to handle Puerto Rico addresses. He is the former Address Management System Manager for the US Postal Service (USPS) in charge of PR and the USVI.

Jon Sperling, Ph.D., GISP GIS Specialist 

Dr. Sperling recently retired as a Senior Policy Analyst of Geographic Information and Analysis at HUD’s Office of Policy, Development and Research. Previously, he was a key player in the initial building of the Census TIGER database which helped jumpstart the GIS "revolution” that propelled hundreds of new businesses offering location-based services. He was responsible for overseeing the development of the first “intelligent” digital street map for Puerto Rico and its first inclusion of address information. Jon authored several papers on the census geography and addressing challenges of Puerto Rico for the 1990, 2000 and 2010 Censuses and was directly involved in enabling digital spatial data sharing capabilities and training workshops with local governments as well as efforts to enhance coordinate accuracy and address data quality. Dr. Sperling was part of a small research team that recently received the ACM SIGSPATIAL 10 Year Impact Award in 2018.

The Initiative for Civic Address Systems Assessment in Puerto Rico (iCASA PR) is an organization started after the devastation of Hurricane Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico in 2018, committed to help communities overcome the problems of “data invisibility” by evaluating and improving their civic addressing systems based on data-driven quantitative and qualitative assessments.

You are invited to join DC humanitarian organizations to map in celebration of International Women's Day! This event will be part of a global conversation around women, mapping and OSM. Join the wider conversation by tweeting with #WhenWomenMap hashtag on Twitter.

Many organizations are partnering for this year's Mapathon, including the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, Missing Maps, YouthMappers, the American Red Cross, the U.S. Department of State's MapGive, and the USAID GeoCenter. Our speakers include Carrie Stokes, Chief Geographer of USAID, and Dr. Marie Price, President of the American Geographical Society and Interim Chair of the George Washington University Geography Department. 

Who: The event is open to the public and all mapping levels are welcome. Training will be provided for new mappers. If you don't already have one, please create an account on OpenStreetMap.

Where: OpenGovHub, 1110 Vermont Ave NW Suite 500, Washington, DC 20005

When: 5:30 - 8:00 PM

Schedule for the evening: 

• 5:30 - First Speaker

• 5:45 - Roundtable Discussion

• 6:00 - Second Speaker

• 6:15 - Mapping Training
  
  

What to bring: Please be sure to bring your laptop, charger, mouse (if you have one), and a government-issued photo ID to get into the building. Thanks to Mapbox, pizza will be provided!