Developing tech with the community: the example of Open Data Editor

 Data is messy. In the 21st century, this is still a sad but solid reality. A lot of people out there working with data everyday (journalists, activists, small public administrations) spend much more time than they would like reviewing datasets to detect errors and getting them ready before they can finally move to the part of work they actually enjoy. Many of those people don’t have the programming skills that would help them automatise some of that work, and sometimes lack data literacy skills. Open Data Editor is a desktop application specifically designed to help people detect errors in tables. It has been developed in constant interaction with the community from a very early stage. These interactions helped us understand what was really helping the community and what not, and especially made us aware of how much the use of such a tool could actually be helpful in increasing data literacy. In this talk we will share our experience piloting the application with different organisations from around the world (Open Knowledge Nepal, City of Zagreb, Bioinformatics Hub of Kenya initiative, the Demography Project, Observatoire des Armements) and how these collaborations shaped the application, making it what it is today. We will also demonstrate that to have a tech product that really helps communities, you have to develop it with them, not only for them.

Keynote at csv,conf,v9 in Bologna, Italy on 10 September 2025
https://csvconf.com/schedule.html