Are you interested in the world of Open Knowledge and Open Data? Do you want to be part of the open community and meet open enthousiasts and experts? Then you should definitely attend Open Belgium, which will be held on Monday March 6 in Brussels.

Open Belgium is an annual conference organized by Open Knowledge Belgium with this year’s theme ‘Open Cities and Smart Data’. There will be talks and discussions about how Open Data can contribute to smart urban development, the rise of smart applications and the shift from raising quantity of data to the raising quality of data.

Programme

Keynotes, cases and workshops will be provided to bring you up to speed on new evolutions and best practices. Data publishers will sit next to users, citizen developers and communities to network and openly discuss the next steps in Open Knowledge and Open Data. At the end of the day there will be a network drink to share some final thoughts.

Here you can find a quick overview of the speakers and their topics:

Talks

Introductory talks

- The State of Open Knowledge in Belgium (Toon Vanagt)
- Belgian Federal Open Data Strategy and Open Statistics (Bart Hanssens & Lucia Decuyper)
- Best of Brussels Hackathons and The Return of the Hackathon (Bart Rosseau, Céline Vanderborght, Philippe Van Impe & Virginie Tumelaire)
- Who should tell the Data Stories? (Maarten Lambrechts)
- The Gender Gap on Wikipedia (Loraine Furter & Ciell)

Intermediate talks

- Sharing Knowledge between Open Cities: how do we start today? (Nils Walravens & Mathias Van Compernolle)
- Open Data across Europe (Heleen Vollers)
- The Economic Value of Open Data (Toon Vanagt, Nikos Loutas, Gerdy Seynaeve, Ingrid Willems & Glyn Arthur)
- 5-star Linked Open Data Address Register (Dieter De Paepe, Raf Buyle & Ziggy Vanlishout)
- Unlock: Interaction with Stakeholders in Urban Planning (Eric Van Horenbeeck, Tom Pauwaert)
- Open Data is Only The Beginning (Tom Janssens)

Workshops

- Open Badges Belgium, A New Open Knowledge Working Group to give Value to badges you receive (Bert Jehoul & Vincent Van Malderen)
- Open Data Governance as an Integral Part of a Smart City: How to start with? (Ann Bernaert, Ingrid Reynaert & Ferdinand Casier)
- 5-star Linked Open Council Decisions (Veronique Volders & Katrien De Smet)

Panels

- Open Data from the four Belgian Public Transit authorities: the story so far (Pieter Colpaert, Peter Defreyne, Bert van Hemelen, Sebastien Goffin & Arnaud Wattiez)
- Let’s talk Linked Data (Miel Vander Sande, Brecht Van De Vyvere & Sander Van Dooren)
- Closing Panel: Learnings and Next Steps (Toon Vanagt, Alexander De Croo & Bert Jehoul)

Discussions

- When Data Producer meets Data Consumer (Yves Thomas)

What companies to meet in the Atrium?

In the Atrium you can meet our different partners:

- The Brussels Regional Informatics Centre (BRIC): a development and modernisation agency organizing, promoting and spreading the use of ICT in Brussels Region
- Proximus : the largest telecommunications company of Belgium
- Digital Wallonia: a platform making Wallonia a connected and smart territory
- ISA²: a programme of the European Commission that supports the development of digital solutions for businesses and citizens in Europe
- OpenStreetMap Belgium : an international project that wants to map the entire world and provide its data to reusers
- Agoria: Belgium's largest employers' organisation and trade association
- Luciad: delivers geospatial software solutions that power the world’s mission critical operations
- PwC: a multinational professional services network providing quality audit, tax and consulting services
- AKUINO: measures and controls installations remotely

Tickets

Do you have your tickets already? If not, you can buy your tickets here.

If you’re not convinced yet, you can find here 5 more reasons why you should attend Open Belgium 2017.

Hope to see you all there.