#opencoalition

Collaboration between different open groups has been on my mind since I first read about Stevie Benton's joint MozFest session, which took place in London last year. That session brought together open organisations such as Mozilla, Creative Commons and the Open Knowledge Foundation to discuss how their shared interests and goals could best be managed for mutual benefit. It became part of a larger project which has since become known as the Open Coalition.

Stevie Benton (who is Head of External Relations at Wikimedia UK) has been instrumental not only in initiating the Open Coalition project, but also in securing funding for a Project Coordinator role to support it. The position is for a six-month period in the first instance, but we hope that one of the coalition partners will provide matching funding to extend the duration. I think this is an exciting development, and I'll be following it closely.  

In collaboration with Bob Kerr and Ewan Klein, I have recently been pursuing an initiative that embodies the goals of the Open Coalition. Datafest Scotland 2014 is a three-day event that we hope to hold in Glasgow later this year. One of the most innovative aspects of the event is the range of organisations who are participating in the planning – including Open Knowledge Foundation Scotland Local Group, OpenStreetMap, Wikimedia UK, the National Library of Scotland, and Open Glasgow / Future Cities Demonstrator. And we’re optimistic that other groups and organisations will pitch in to support this event.

With all this in mind it seemed only logical to invite Stevie to the forthcoming OKF Scotland meetup in Edinburgh (22nd January at the National Library of Scotland) to tell us more about the Open Coalition. Hopefully we in the Scottish open knowledge and open access community will be able to share our collaborative experience and contribute to the project's success. 

Graeme Arnott

Community Coordinator for Open Knowledge Foundation Scotland