Now in its third year, Open Data Day events is far bigger than we ever dared imagine. More interesting still is its impact, both expected and unexpected. Read More

A week out from the Kenyan election, a contested victory for Uhuru Kenyatta has summoned comparisons to the country’s 2007 ballot.  But this time around, political violence has been largely absent in the public’s response to the results.  The 2013 election may be better known for its technical difficulties. 

America's secret drone campaign in Pakistan's remote tribal areas is meant to target militants, but frequently kills civilian bystanders as well. The White House argues that the campaign is a necessary and effective means of fighting terror, while watchdog groups struggle to learn more about how and why American intelligence officials kill with "aerial vehicles." But both sides predicate their arguments on one deeply flawed assumption: That we cannot know the names of the dead. Read More

Russian citizens will soon have their own e-petition portal, though they may not be able to demand the construction of a Death Star.  President Vladimir Putin signed an order earlier this week to create The Russian Public Initiative, a site will launch in April for e-petitions to the federal government, with regional and local petitions following later in the year.

It’s not an easy time to be a journalist in Spain.  Even as the country’s ongoing economic and unemployment woes continue, and a political scandal of unprecedented scale rocks all levels of government, trust in the press – and incentives to produce objective journalism – are at an all-time low. 

Last month, seemingly out of nowhere, the Province of British Columbia announced it would spend $1 million (in Canadian dollars) to address health and safety violations in a number of the single resident occupancy (SRO) buildings it owns in Vancouver. The reason...? Open data. Read More

Bangkok residents will elect a new governor on March 3. This election cycle, more Thai voters are getting their information about candidates from social media than ever before. Could observing the chatter around the elections replace traditional polling methods, as a means of predicting the outcome of the elections? Read More

"I demand the immediate resignation of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and the calling of elections, as well as the resignation of any member of the People's Party named in the documents who holds office publicly or in the party." That's not an opposition leader speaking but more than a million Spanish citizens who signed a petition on Change.org as a reaction to an unprecedented corruption scandal involving the highest ranks of the government. Read More

When the municipality of Lima, Peru, launched The Metropolitano, an urban initiative aimed at solving the city's myriad public transportation woes, a local NGO came up with a platform aimed at enhancing civic participation by aggregating citizens' concerns and forwarding them to the authorities while the project was still in the planning stages. Sounds like a great idea, right? But along the way to civic engagement, the NGO discovered the fatal flaw that needs to be resolved if initiatives like theirs and other, similar projects around the world are to succeed. Read More