Investing in Open Data is Investing in Future

UNESCO-TERRE collaboration makes Smart Campus Cloud Network as Accelerator for Access to Open Data on top of the SDGs and Climate Agenda 

​Paris-Pune 26^th January 2022. 

"World is tremendously off track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030," said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently. While COVID19 pandemic and climate change have left humanity deep in efforts to bring the derailed implementation of SDGs back on track, the lack of availability, accessibility and affordability of open data is frustrating such efforts.

UNESCO and TERRE Policy Centre accredited NGOs with consultative status with UNESCO, joined hands to disrupt such worrying trends by stepping up the efforts and catalysing access to Open Data on SDGs and climate actions through three sub-regional webinars in South Asia.

The aim was to put the access to open data on top of the policy agenda of the countries in the region as an essential tool that can be deployed to accelerate the implementation of SDGs and Climate Action as well as managing the pandemic. Tools like awareness booklets and guidelines for Carbon Neutrality for Capacity building.

TERRE's flagship project Smart Campus Cloud Network -SCCN ( www.sccnhub.com) is the global network of universities that have prioritized the critical and seminal issue of Open Access Data on scientific information under the guidance of UNESCO.

As a result of the workshops, the movement on open access has reached the campuses of all the universities in Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and have planned action on policies and demonstration on the subject.

Workshops were designed and coordinated by SCCN, a skill-building tool of TERRE supported by UNESCO to implement SDGs and climate action in the Campus by deploying digital technologies like IoT, Cloud Networking, AI, and Big Data.

Dr Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman of AICTE, All India Council of Higher Technical Education, made the striking observation that human development has always flourished under openness. He announced a tool that has been recently developed by AICTE using Artificial Intelligence to translate English into 12 Indian languages – a real contribution to open access data movement.

"The global experience in dealing with pandemic has demonstrated the importance of open access to data". World Health Organisation has made it a topmost priority that all the relevant global data on virus, vaccine and pandemic is available open access portal.", stated Dr Maria Neira, Director World Health Organisation for Climate Change, Environment and Health.

"Open Access is not against an Intellectual Property Right, but it is about the scientific agenda driven by sharing and disseminating to the wider people in society", said Dr Bhanu Neupane, Advisor ICT and Science, of UNESCO in Paris.

Nearly 1000 youth from the South Asia region participated in the workshops. In response to the question from the students, about how illiterate people can benefit from the access to open data, Dr Rajendra Shende, Chairman of TERRE and former Director of UNEP responded, "Here is where digital technologies would be of help. AI that can be used not only for translation but also for making audio files, animation and audio Q and A, audio dialogues in various languages would facilitate open access".

Dr Shende also highlighted the leadership role played by the Royal University of Bhutan in making Open Access Data a mainstream activity in all its activities. He released three publications under SCCN: Awareness booklet on Open access, Baby steps for Carbon Neutrality and Guidelines for Universities to go carbon neutral.

The key outcome of the workshops were identifications of the needs for:

• Awareness to the universities through country-specific workshops a
  
• National and University Policies on Open Access.
• Creating a dashboard for the universities in the region for sharing good practices
• Research on impacts of open access data on progress in SDGs and Climate Action
• Devising the mechanism for Incentives and compensation for those who generate the data
• Use and sharing of digital technologies like AI for open Access.

 Dr Rajendra Shende, 

Chairman - TERRE Policy Centre,

Former Director UNEP, IIT Alumni  

Coordinating lead author of IPCC.