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On 19 and 20 May 2015, we hosted the second international Alaveteli conference in Madrid with our partner organisation Access Info Europe.

AlaveteliCon is the world’s only conference on Freedom of Information technologies and brought together 47 participants from 23 different countries. They all had one thing in common: an interest in online FOI tools.

The conference is over, but you can revisit it in a variety of places online:

 

You can read more about the previous AlaveteliCon held in 2012 here.

AlaveteliCon was possible thanks to the generous support from Open Society Foundations.

AGENDA

Day 1

09.30 Registration and session submission
10.00 Welcome to AlaveteliCon!
Opening notes by Helen Darbishire (Access Info Europe) and Paul Lenz (mySociety)
10.15 Telling Success Stories: Positive impact and change through online FOIStories by: Richard Hunt (Czech Republic), Helen Cross (UK), Victoria Esteves (Uruguay), Carlota Estalella (Uganda)
11.15 Telling War Stories: The challenges of online FOIStories by: Marietta Le (Hungary), Henare Degan (Australia), David Cabo (Spain), Yehuda Bar-Nir (Israel)
12.15 Selection of unconference sessions (session suggestions were voted on)
12.30 Unconference sessions:
1. How to drive usage and awareness of FOI request sites
2. What metrics would be useful to collect and compare from FOI sites?
3. Beyond accumulating requests: what to do with released documents?
13.30 Lunch
14.15 Lightning talks Stephan Anguelov from Access to Information Programme (Bulgaria) ‘FOI platform in law?’Miguel Angel Aavilanes from Civio (Spain) ‘Right to public information in Spain: Tackling barriers’Michael Leow from Sinar Project (Malaysia) ‘State of FOI in Malaysia’Yelena Hewitt from Disclosure Today (Portugal) ‘A Game Changer for Social Governance’
14.35 Alternatives to Alaveteli: tales from FROIDE and MuckRock
Beryl Lipton (MuckRock, USA) and Arne Semsrott (FragDenStaat.de, Germany)
15.15 I’ve launched my site, now what? Tips and experience from the post-launch period
Alisa Ruban (Ukraine)
15.45 The roadmap for Alaveteli developmentWhole-group discussion: suggest new features, give opinions on the existing ones, and help prioritise future development
Led by mySociety developers Louise and Gareth
16.45 Refreshment break
16.55 Unconference sessions:
4. Weird and funny requests: Fight them or use them for media outreach?
5. Rhetoric of trust vs. mistrust: Presenting authorities as partners or enemies?
6. Alaveteli goes offline: access to information without access to the internet
17.55 Closing remarks
18.00 End of Day 1

 

Day 2
10.00 Registration and session submission
10.30 Research into Alaveteli: Insights from around the world, and how they impact Alaveteli’s future
Savita Bailur (lead researcher) and Rebecca Rumbul (mySociety)
11.15 It can be done: running FOI platforms in less technically developed countries
Stephen Abbott-Pugh (Rwanda) and Carlota Estalella (Uganda)
11.45 Selection of unconference sessions (session suggestions were voted on)
12.00 A culture of mutual support
How can we best support and foster a community for sharing and support?
12.30 Unconference sessions:
7. Change the world law: Using Alaveteli to change FOI law for the better
8. Alaveteli is used heavily by journalists/NGOs in many countries – especially to translate government information into understandable stories. Should we be adding features to cater for this?
9. How have sites raised funds?
13.30 Lunch
14.30 Group splits into:
Open Tech Discussion/Hacking
On bugs, new features, and technical issues etc.
Open Campaigning/Research Discussion
On topics not yet covered during the conference
16.30 Closing remarks
17.00 Conference ends