New frontiers for open knowledge

Hello Open Knowledge community, It’s the end of July, and while some of you might be away, we’ve been anything but quiet. We’re excited to introduce our new Frontiers of Openness workstream, through which we hope to explore the evolution of open knowledge and openness to emerging challenges at the intersection of technology and society. Two projects already embody this direction: the BrainCommons initiative, asking how we keep neurotechnology open and accountable, and the SkyCommons Observatory, a new platform, tracking who profits from connectivity in space (and who gets left behind). Our AI Learning Labs continue to deliver tangible results, with the launch of the Climate Academy Chatbot (CABot), a responsible climate chatbot that offers traceable, trustworthy answers to pressing climate questions, a refreshing prototype against the distortions of mainstream generative AI. Meanwhile, our traceable AI pilots in Brazil and Uruguay are gaining recognition: we recently shared our work with over 200 practitioners at a UN Big Data Regional Hub webinar, and we’re now listed on the UN’s AI Dialogue Partnerships Hub. There’s more: updates on the Open Technology Research Symposium, fresh insights from our advocacy work, and news from the Open Knowledge Network around the world. Enjoy the reading. Commercial brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are rapidly moving beyond research laboratories into consumer markets, workplaces, healthcare, education and entertainment. The decisions made today about how these technologies are designed, governed and deployed will influence whether they become open tools that expand human agency or closed infrastructures that concentrate power over our cognitive lives. The Tech We Want for Our Brain Commons Online Summit brought together researchers, developers, policymakers, journalists, civil society and industry to explore how openness can help shape a future in which neurotechnology remains transparent, accountable and aligned with democratic values. After several months of reading, experiencing and analysing the current technical and regulatory landscape of brain computer interfaces, and talking to technologists, policy makers, thinkers, legal scholars and data experts, we encapsulated our learnings in 8 recommendations to shape the future of the tech we want for our brain commons. Our discussions, now openly available on PeerTube and the Internet Archive, examined how openness in hardware, software, data and governance can strengthen existing protections, foster innovation, enable public oversight and preserve individual autonomy. “The danger with LLMs is that we tend, perhaps, to outsource our thinking.” Christoph Bublitz – University of Hamburg 🎥 Watch the keynote “We need to protect human imagination and our capacity to change our minds autonomously.” Susie Alegre – International Human Rights Lawyer 🎥 Watch the keynote SkyCommons Observatory: Tracking Who Profits from Connectivity in Space and Who Gets Left Behind In July, we released a baseline study on how Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite internet was rolled out in six countries (Brazil, Ukraine, Fiji, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Nigeria) and scored them on key public-interest principles, including governance and accountability. The dominant company – SpaceX’s Starlink – is so powerful, and the public interest protections so low, that our level of concern across all these countries varies from moderate to high. You can now visit the prototype for the interactive SkyCommons Observatory at skycommons.okfn.org. It includes a navigable open data visualisation of all the satellites currently in orbit above Earth. Introducing CABot: An AI Learning Labs Chatbot Designed for Accuracy As part of a partnership with Open Knowledge’s AI Learning Labs, the teams at #semanticClimate and The Climate Academy have just launched a prototype for a responsible, climate-friendly open source AI chatbot that can answer questions about climate change using pre-approved literature, datasets, and conversational guardrails. Try out the Climate Academy Chatbot (CABot) and offer your feedback to the development team here. Mainstream AI chatbots often generate distortions and misrepresentations about climate change. CABot is built to provide answers that are traceable, transparent, and trustworthy – exactly what climate educators and learners need. Design choices for a responsible AI chatbot Renu Kumari and Udita Agarwal, researchers from #semanticClimate, discuss the technical details behind CABot. CABot’s Launch Event The educators and scientists behind the chatbot gave a detailed demonstration, shared their thoughts on AI and answered questions from the community. ‘Fixing a blind spot with AI’ In this in-depth article, philosophy teacher Matthew Pye provides a more detailed analysis of CABot. OKFN’s MCP Solution Shared with UN Big Data Hub in Latin America We are still impressed by the substantial turnout of over 200 people interested in one of our current public AI experiments, namely integrating an MCP server with open data portals. Last month, the Tech Team at OKFN held a webinar in collaboration with the UN Regional Hub for Big Data in Brazil and the ECLAC Knowledge Transfer Network, where we presented our experimental solution with the open data catalogues of Brazil and Uruguay. During the session, we shared the design and engineering decisions behind the integration, the challenges we encountered and the lessons we learned through the AI Learning Labs project. The webinar was attended by more than 200 people, including researchers, public servants, and students, and aimed to inspire other organisations across Latin America to adopt similar models in their own open data portals. At Wikimania Paris, Bridging the Gap Between Open Data and AI OKFN’s Tech Lead, Patricio Del Boca, also hosted a workshop session at Wikimania Paris where he shared our MCP prototype for traceable AI answers in open data portals. We learnt many lessons from this experiment, including the technical barriers that large language models (LLMs) pose to the accuracy of information. In Paris, we were able to connect with communities and organisations undertaking similar initiatives and gain a better understanding of our future roadmap for this tool. AI Learning Labs is Now Listed on UN’s AI Dialogue Partnerships Hub We are proud to be part of the United Nations’ Global Dialogue on AI Governance, the world’s first international platform convened by the UN General Assembly where all governments and stakeholders sit at the same table to have the meaningful conversation on AI the world needs. Open Knowledge’s AI Learning Labs is helping social sector organisations and governments in multiple countries to catalyse learning and help them build AI skills, use AI responsibly, and develop their own AI projects. Impressive Number of Proposals to Help Shape the Open Transition We’d like to extend a sincere thank you to everyone who took the time to submit research to the Call for Proposals for the first edition of the Open Technology Research (OTR) Symposium 2026. We’re especially pleased with the geographical diversity of the submissions, as well as the greater diversity of contributions. Here’s what happens next: our programme committee, made up of researchers, practitioners, and advocates, will review all contributions and make their final programme selections. Stay tuned! 📘 Large-scale, non-reciprocal AI extraction is threatening the sustainability of digital public goods. The Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) Secretariat has released two critical resources to help navigate the “paradox of open”. The new Best Practices for Preventing AI Exploitation of Open Content and Open Data DPGs compiles firsthand experiences from major initiatives to outline practical steps for engaging commercial AI entities, while The DPG Defence Playbook introduces a six-layer “defence and reciprocity pyramid” ranging from macro-level regulatory frameworks to technical data integrity measures. Both assets were developed in consultation with the community and authored by Lea Gimpel, Director of Policy and AI Lead. These are the latest discussions on the Open Knowledge Forum. Have your say! @loleg on Open Data Editor ↗ “On the Frictionless Data call today, I bumped a topic that’s been at the top of my mind for a few months: support for the Apertus LLM in ODE.” @rgradeck on AI Learning Labs ↗ “Sharing some insights from the Urban Institute here in the U.S. – They have been experimenting with how well LLM’s are able to answer questions using public data.” @a5dur on CKAN ↗ “Might sound vague, but keeping the community stubbornly human may be the actual moat 🤔🤔” Check out the latest highlights from our global movement. 🇳🇵 Open Knowledge Nepal (OKN) co-led a hands-on session mapping Nepal’s civic tech and AI landscape at the Digital Democracy Summit 2026, bringing together 120+ participants from government, development partners, civil society, and academia to surface where the opportunities, policy gaps, and coordination needs lie. They have also published “When Algorithms Decide”, a new diagnostic report mapping how automated content moderation shapes what Nepali creators, journalists, and activists can say online, drawing on platform data from TikTok, YouTube, and Meta alongside original community research. It identifies three structural gaps, transparency, language, and accountability, and sets out recommendations for platforms, government, and civil society. 🇯🇵 Open Knowledge Japan (OKJP) is organising a free, hybrid event on August 1st: “Aspects of change surrounding AI: From open data, knowledge, and civic tech-related fields”. After a dormant period, OKJP is inviting those involved in open data, knowledge, and civic tech, to share information, identify key issues, and network. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using and spreading AI, and of civic-participatory social reform initiatives and social reform through the opening up of information resources such as knowledge? They hope to have a frank exchange of opinions with everyone on these questions, and that this event will provide an opportunity to foster new collaborations and practical applications. Save the dates! Open Tech Week 2026 Barcelona 26—30 October Barcelona prepares to become the world’s capital of open source and host the second edition of Open Tech Week (OTW), an international gathering dedicated to open technologies, digital rights and democratic innovation, bringing together participants from civil society, public administrations, academia and the technology sector. Mozilla Festival 2026 Barcelona 28–30 October MozFest is three days of bold conversations, hands-on building, and ideas worth traveling for. This year, they are partnering with the City of Barcelona and taking part in Open Tech Week – a city-wide celebration of the people shaping a better digital world. Open Technology Research Symposium Barcelona 26–27 October This global, multidisciplinary research symposium brings academics and practitioners together to advance understanding of the role of open technologies in the modern world and produces policy-relevant research that helps decision-makers drive impact. Entry is free of charge. Abrelatam Condatos 2026 Guatemala City 7–9 October Abrelatam is at the heart of the conversation on open data in Latin America and the Caribbean, bringing together governments, academia, the private sector and civil society to tackle local and global challenges. This event facilitates collaboration and dialogue across multiple sectors to advance transparency, inclusive development and the strengthening of democracy through data. Internet Governance Forum 2026 Nairobi 14–18 December The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is a global multistakeholder platform that facilitates discussions on public policy issues pertaining to Internet governance. The IGF was one of the most important outcomes of the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) that mandated the United Nations Secretary-General to formally convene the Forum. About us. Open knowledge is any content, information or data that people are free to use, re-use and redistribute — without any legal, technological or social restriction. The Open Knowledge Foundation’s mission is to create a fair, sustainable and open digital future, advancing open knowledge as a design principle beyond just data. We do it by guiding and supporting the creation of digital infrastructure, developing policies and methodologies, harnessing communities and advocating for literacies and standards in a sustainable, ethical and agile manner.