This year’s International Open Data Conference (IODC) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, ended with the exciting announcement that the 6th edition of the conference will be held in Africa, specifically Nairobi. This will be the first time Africa hosts the bi-annual conference that brings together champions on Open Data from Government, Civil Society, Academia, innovators etc to share, learn and collaborate on policies, technologies, tactics, tools, and platforms for making data more open, accessible, available and interoperable in support of development priorities.

The main purpose of IODC is to accelerate collaboration and increase the impact of open data activities globally, across different work streams such as Agriculture, health, education, gender, and fiscal transparency. The Government of Spain, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the World Bank, and the Open Data for Development Network (OD4D) have been the curators of the Conference for the last 10 years. The Fifth IODC held in Buenos Aires, Argentina from September 27 – 28, 2018, was organized by the Government of Argentina, the World Bank, IDRC and OD4D with the support of Google, amongst others.

Legal advisor to the Deputy President, Dr. Korir Sing’oei, said on receiving the batton to host #IODC20, Kenya’s behalf, “We are indeed humbled and honored to be entrusted with the next International Open Data Conference, which will be a tremendous opportunity for the African Continent to showcase impact on how it has harnessed the power of data, technology, and innovation, to respond to the age-old challenges of our populations. With this conference, we are signaling Africa’s readiness to play a leading role in bridging the different data communities to deliver the benefits of data to our economies and leave no one behind.”

Undersecretary for Public Innovation and Open Government for Argentina’s Ministry for Modernization, Mr. Rudi Borrmann, noted that “This will be an excellent opportunity to share lessons learned on hosting such an auspicious gathering with Kenya, but most importantly, a practical opportunity to strengthen South-South Collaboration. We look forward to advising and working with the Government of Kenya in the successful hosting of IODC in 2020.”