Confused about what we do? Need a quick answer about something related to the OKFN and its work? Here are a few of the questions we get asked the most.

Who are you?

The Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) is a community-based not-for-profit organisation founded in 2004 in Cambridge, UK. We were founded by Rufus Pollock who remains a director. The company Open Knowledge Foundation Limited was incorporated on 20 May 2004.

What do you do?

We build tools and communities to create, use and share open knowledge, content and data that everyone can use, build on and share.

As well as technical tools, the foundation also works on legal tools and open data standards.

We also run events and other activities to help promote awareness about the need for open data.

What’s your vision?

We believe that by creating an open knowledge commons and developing tools and communities around this we can make a significant contribution to society.

This includes everything from greater transparency around public spending to more collaborative scientific research. See vision for more details.

Where can I get an overview of countries you work in?

The Foundation was established in Cambridge, UK and the OKNF now has chapters, partnerships & interest groups all over the world. You can see a list of official OKFN chapters and groups here.

For an overview of where our topic-based working groups and projects have been established, please see the countries listed in our mailing lists.

Don’t see a mailing list for your country? Know people who would be interested in continuing the discussion and organising local events where you are? Get in touch and we will happily set up a list for your country!

What projects do you do?

The OKF’s Flagship Projects include:

• CKAN, open source software used to help people find, share & publish data
• OpenSpending, a service which monitors government spending

We also work on numerous other projects. For full information please see projects.

What is the open knowledge / open content / open data community?

Much of the foundation’s work is organised around working groups. If you are interested in becoming a member of a particular working group, please introduce yourself to the group on the relevant mailing list and we will guide you through how to get involved.

We run regular online and in-person meet-ups for people interested in individual projects, these are announced on specific project mailing lists.

In addition, we support and provide infrastructure (such as mailing lists, wikis and blogs) for groups working on open data in a particular area. Please contact us if you are interested in setting one up.

Another key part of our community building is running events: for example we run OKCon, the annual open knowledge conference, to bring together parties interested in open knowledge and data from all over the world.

Are you a lobbying group?

No, we’re not a lobbying group and generally don’t do any direct ‘policy’-style work. We do run workshops and events and generally enthuse about the value of open information but we prefer to convince people of the value of open data through building useful, user-friendly applications and services based on open data.

Where can I get an overview of your activities?

The OKF planet site aggregates blog activity from around the OKF network. It gives a good overview of the activity across the foundation including events, guest blog posts from the community and updates about our work in the open data movement.

For central OKF activities, see the OKF blog. You can also follow us on Twitter @okfn.

In addition, each individual working group either has or soon will have its own blog for project-specific updates.

Where can I get an overview of projects?

For a list of current projects and partner projects – please see projects.

Where can I get an overview of areas you work in?

The OKFN promotes open knowledge from genes to geodata, sonnets to statistics, that is, open data in any field or area. We stress that if we are not currently working in an area which you would like to develop, we are keen to expand our remit and are looking for motivated people to help drive the discussions onwards.

A good overview of the areas we work with can be achieved by looking at the mailing list descriptions. The mailing lists are the veins of the organisation and we attempt to conduct as many of our discussions as possible via them.

What working groups are there?

Please see working groups.

Can I bring a project that I am currently working on to the Foundation?

Absolutely! We welcome discussions about collaboration. One of our guiding principles is to collaborate to prevent duplication of effort and resources. Please drop an email to the mailing list of the most relevant interest group or contact us if no such group exists.

For a list of our current partner projects, please see projects

Can I start a new project?

Yes! We welcome suggestions from individuals and organisations looking to work with us. If your project relates to Open Data, we will aim to support you as much as we can.

Please submit your idea in our ideas forum.

We review ideas several times per year and announce the projects which we will support twice a year: in the summer at our annual conference, OKCon and around Christmas.

Do you provide hosting?

Yes, please contact us for more information

How can I get involved?

We are always looking for volunteers whether they be coders or designers, data wranglers, writers or translators… or idea generators! Enthusiasm is much more important than experience.

Please simply contact us via the Get Involved form and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

I am interested in paid work – do you offer any opportunities?

We are a community-driven organisation and much of our work is carried out by volunteers and partner organisations.

However, from time to time, we do take on contractors for grant funded or contract work. If you are interested in finding out which opportunities are available, please get in touch.

We have also had a great deal of success in working with organisations who allow their employees to use a proportion of their work time to work on OKF projects. If you are interested in exploring this possibility, we will happily provide details of what this could entail and help negotiate with your organisation about how this could be mutually beneficial to both parties!

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