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Author(s): Presidency of the Government, E-Government Unit

Resource Type: Case studies

Countries: Tunisia

SDG: GOAL 16. Peace and Justice Strong Institutions

Keywords: Open Data, Hackathon

2020

Tunisia Open Government Data Hackathon 2020

Source in English: ESCWA-OECD Case Study - Open Government Data Hackathon 2020, Tunisia

As part of the 3rd Open Government Partnership Action Plan 2018-2020, the Hackathon 2020 was organized for promoting the reuse of open public data and for finding solutions to exiting challenges in a number of sectors.   The project aimed at developing a set of reuse cases based on the open data published by public institutions, while engaging the concerned public structures and data consumers (developers, data scientists, journalists, others).

Implementation: 2019-2020

Contributor(s)

This project was initiated by the e-Government Unit at the Presidency of the Government and benefited from contributions of other public structures, private sector companies, media and various donors.

Purpose

The project aimed to promote the reuse of open public data and to encourage public institutions to continue to publish data and engage in implementing openness commitments.

Functions

The Tunisia national competition "OpenGovDataHack2020" was organized within the framework of the public data reuse project in the transport, culture and health insurance sectors.  It incorporated internal and external use cases of open public data, one focusing on creating solutions for public structures, and the other on developing applications for citizens. The preparations were in three stages and included workshops to identify existing challenges, a capacity-building programme and a follow-up phase.  Furthermore, a participatory approach was adopted for the Hackathon, taking into consideration the technical, legal and functional aspects related to open data.

Clients

This project benefited citizens and involved public structures, as well as different users of applications and services and data consumers, including developers, start-ups, data scientists and data analysts, journalists, students, and public officials.

Outcome

Over 150 participants, mostly youth, were selected from more than 640 candidates to take part in the 2020 Hackathon, and winning teams were awarded for their efforts.   Actionable ideas and innovative prototypes resulting from the Hackathon will be adopted and transformed into real projects and solutions, which will contribute to creating new businesses and job opportunities as well as improving administration action and public services quality.

Challenges

  • Selecting and prioritizing the use cases of open data according to the challenges identified in each sector in the preliminary phase of the competition.
  • Ensuring a successful implementation of the first open data Hackathon and creating favorable conditions for the large number of participants.
  • Developing digital solutions and applications that respond to the needs of both public structures and citizens.
  • Clarifying the two tracks of the competition which consist of internal and external use cases, and the purpose of each.

Useful links

Open Government Partnership - Tunisia

News: Organization of the National Hackthon on the open public data reuse #OpenGovDataHack2020
News: Organizing two training sessions on open data and data publication: part 1, part 2
News: Organizing workshops to diagnose the reuse cases could be developed through open data
Youtube news: Organization of the OpenGovDataHack2020 (Ar)
News: Tunisia’s first ever open data hackathon taps into digitalization’s potential for greater development impact

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