This year, Opendata.ch is a guest presenter in the Smart Transparency zone at Criterion 2019, a festival at Messe Zürich dedicated to sustainable design and business models. Thanks to Crowd Container, Smart Use and the Zurich Makers for their support!
We are putting up a digital screen showcasing open data projects/platforms with potential for use in augmenting trade transparency - and you can add your own project suggestions here https://db.opü.ch/event/2/project/new
@Nikki has two tickets to give away to two lucky community members. Submissions, replies or tweets @opendatach of what comes to mind when you think of smart transparency will each have a chance to claim them!
The story
Our appearance at Criterion was made possible by Crowd Container - a startup that has developed a trade model that enables producers to pay fair prices and makes the trade chains from the field to the consumer transparent. Their founders were already present at Opendata.ch/2016 and Food.Opendata.ch events, debating their ideas of open supply chain data with our community. We are exhibiting together at Criterion, and collaborating on ways to promote Data Literacy and new Open Data sources that can show the conventional trade flows for different products and thus give the consumers/visitors comparison possibilities.
And we need your help!
Come and help set up on Wednesday, or join us at our booth on any or all of the days of Thursday (evening) - Sunday, 28 - 31 of March, and help us to bring the show on the road.
I will additionally take part in a podium discussion with Crowd Container and Impact Hub in the Speakers Corner on Sunday at 12:00
Transparent Trade - the role of data and technology
How can food startups make use of food data and technology to create more transparent supply chains? What is currently feasible and what will the future bring? The discussion will be moderated by the circular economy specialist from Impact Hub Zurich, Laurene Descamps.
At the discussion this morning we debated a vision for sustainabiliity in the technology area. We focussed on the Food topic because of our collaboration at Criterion with Crowd Container - a start-up that creates fully transparent food value chains and makes price calculations available for its customers.
Questions that we discussed included: why is transparency in the Food area so important? How could this be achieved, e.g. with what technologies and innovative approaches? How to work effectively with civic organisations on Open Data initiatives? And at which point should a startup think about investing into this kind of development? How do trending topics like IoT, AI, and Blockchains intersect with this area? How could data and technologies contribute to a more sustainable Food System? And what makes technology (more, or less) sustainable? What is our vision on Supply Chains in the Food area in the next ten years? In the open discussion, people asked us for specific examples, led us into further discussion about the political and technical issues at stake.
We bounced a lot of ideas around, mentioning the following initiatives:
The Open Food Data program and it’s diverse startups who have benefited from data resources and community infrastructure.
Swiss data projects like Open Food Repo and international efforts like Open Food Facts to publish/crowdsource useful open data resources.
Our concern with Energy Data, and the question of sustainable technology use across all domains of industry, politics and connected life.
Concerning data literacy, how tools like the opendata.swiss portal, it’s catalogue and Terms of Use are helping to boost public interest.
Developing accessible and useful guidance for people trying to instill fairness principles into their approach to technology, through projects like Better IoT or Open Data Index.
How to get help from our association in data publication and use efforts, from hackathon series and community channels, to public showcases like our booth at Criterion and companion site.
The fact that we supported a hackathon about product footprints this week, and are hoping to be back to Criterion with more Open Data next year!
Thanks very much to Laurene, Tobias and Franziska for the collaboration
https://db.opü.ch/event/2/project/new
BIG THANKS 
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