When it comes to “openness” in digital development, one of the most important things to remember, and one of the easiest to forget, is why we’re doing this work in the first place. Connecting the strategy of openness to social impact outcomes, we sit with Dr. Ronda Zelezny-Green (Program Director, Capacity Accelerator Network at DataDotOrg and Digital Principles Advisory Council Member) to discuss the values and challenges of open educational resources. Amandine Le Pape (Co-Founder, Matrix.org) shares examples of how open technology platforms can speed national digital transformation and Samson Goddy (Co-Founder, Open Source Community Africa) gives us a glimpse of the potentials of an open future.