The Neurotech Booth at RightsCon That Never Happened
Open Knowledge prepared a hands‑on neurotechnology booth for RightsCon to let civil‑society participants experience consumer‑grade brain‑computer interfaces. The initiative highlighted that sleek, wellness‑branded BCIs are already on the market, collecting neural signals alongside personal data with opaque privacy terms. With the event canceled, the organization still released its findings, noting a projected $960.8 million market by 2034 and the lack of regulatory clarity. The team calls for immediate openness and auditability to protect digital rights.
Brazil and OKFN Partner to Enable Citizens to ‘Talk’ to National Data
Today the Open Knowledge Foundation announced a collaboration with Brazil’s Office of the Comptroller General to pilot a natural‑language interface for public data. Using a Model Context Protocol, the system will connect large‑language models directly to CKAN‑based datasets, delivering AI‑generated...
Learning Together, Building Together – OKFN Newsletter April 2026
The Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) announced the launch of AI Learning Labs, a global partnership to develop multilingual, hands‑on AI literacy resources for social‑sector organisations. It also revealed a joint initiative with the Wikimedia Foundation to treat knowledge as critical...
Introducing OKFN’s AI Learning Labs
Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) announced AI Learning Labs, a new initiative that pairs hands‑on AI experimentation with the creation of public, multilingual AI‑literacy resources for social‑sector organisations. The programme will work with a small cohort of NGOs tackling climate change,...
An Honest Reflection on the Integration of LLMs Into Open Data Portals
The Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) warns that large language models (LLMs) cannot be trusted for factual, data‑backed answers in open data portals, citing hallucinations and a roughly 50% success rate for AI‑generated SQL queries. It outlines five core challenges—trustworthiness, transparency,...
Open Data Day Essay #5: ‘Decisions Under the Public Eye: A Promising Set of Open Data’
The Dutch research project Beschikkingen in Beeld examined how administrative decisions are disclosed as open data under the upcoming Wet open overheid. Mapping over 500 government bodies, the study found fewer than 40 agencies proactively publish individual decisions, highlighting the infancy...
Open Data Day Essay #1: ‘Data Is a Goldmine, if You Share It’
A new report by Open State Foundation estimates that open data creates roughly $3.85 bn of annual societal value in the Netherlands, driven by innovation, efficiency, accountability and participation. Real‑world cases – the Regional Climate Monitor dashboard, the citizen‑run Zonopjebakkes app,...