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Open Data for Civil Society: How the New Trend of Accessibility of Government Information and Development of Civic-Tech Platforms Helps Nepalis Control Power
Imagine a Kathmandu resident walking down the street and seeing an old bus belching thick plumes of black smoke. In the past, he might have just shaken his head in disgust. Today, he takes out his smartphone, shoots a short video, and uploads it to an online platform. After a while, he receives a notification: his complaint has been accepted, and the municipal authorities are already dealing with the polluting vehicle. This is not a scene from the future, but a real-life example of how technology is changing civic engagement in Nepal, a country better known for its majestic Himalayas than for digital innovation. At the heart of this transformation are two interrelated phenomena: “open data” and “civic tech.”
To understand the essence of this quiet revolution, let us define these key concepts in simple terms. Open Data— is information that anyone can freely and without charge use, reuse, and distribute. Imagine a huge library where all the data collected by the state is stored: budgets, health statistics, election results, air quality data. For a long time, these “books” have been gathering dust in closed archives. The concept of open data is to put them on public shelves. And it is important not only to have legal permission to use (legal openness), but also technical feasibility: the data must be presented in a format convenient for computer processing (for example, CSV tables), and not as scanned PDF documents from which information must be extracted manually.
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By Alpha Business MediaImagine a Kathmandu resident walking down the street and seeing an old bus belching thick plumes of black smoke. In the past, he might have just shaken his head in disgust. Today, he takes out his smartphone, shoots a short video, and uploads it to an online platform. After a while, he receives a notification: his complaint has been accepted, and the municipal authorities are already dealing with the polluting vehicle. This is not a scene from the future, but a real-life example of how technology is changing civic engagement in Nepal, a country better known for its majestic Himalayas than for digital innovation. At the heart of this transformation are two interrelated phenomena: “open data” and “civic tech.”
To understand the essence of this quiet revolution, let us define these key concepts in simple terms. Open Data— is information that anyone can freely and without charge use, reuse, and distribute. Imagine a huge library where all the data collected by the state is stored: budgets, health statistics, election results, air quality data. For a long time, these “books” have been gathering dust in closed archives. The concept of open data is to put them on public shelves. And it is important not only to have legal permission to use (legal openness), but also technical feasibility: the data must be presented in a format convenient for computer processing (for example, CSV tables), and not as scanned PDF documents from which information must be extracted manually.