Tiina Knuutila : Sunlight Foundation

Filming OpenGov Champions: Marko Rakar, Zagreb, Croatia

by Tiina Knuutila Jul 11, 2013 10:19 am

You cannot hang around the global OpenGov and transparency community without running into Marko Rakar. This open data activist ended up creating so much change in his native country of Croatia that he is now a close consultant to the country’s current president in all matters of politics. His story is so inspiring that even though we focus mostly on the open government movement in the U.S. in our OpenGov Champions series, I wanted to nominate him as our next Champ. He is a great example of making big change happen through fairly simple actions.

Please Vote for Sunlight’s “Civic Hacking in Pursuit of Democracy” Video

by Gabriela Schneider and Tiina Knuutila May 7, 2013 2:28 pm

Here’s an appeal for our readers: please help Sunlight spread the news of the great work civic hackers do as far and wide as possible by voting for our storytelling video in the Looking@Democracy contest organized by the Illinois Humanities Council with support from the MacArthur Foundation. (Voting ends May 16.) We couldn’t wait to tell this (previously) untold story through a short video to demonstrate how the nascent movement of civic hackers are creating apps and tools using open government data to make their communities better. These men and women are equipped with laptops, open data and creative ideas to positively reconstruct the way we relate with government.