Jonathan is an independent contractor working for the Open Knowledge Foundation, an award winning not-for-profit organisation dedicated to promoting open data, open content and the public domain in a variety of different fields. The Foundation has helped to open up government information, research data and cultural material in dozens of countries around the world.
His main role is to help to engage and build stronger communities of people who are interested in using and publishing open material — from scientists, scholars and civil servants to designers, developers and data journalists.
He has founded and co-founded a number of projects and initiatives in this area, including:
The Data Journalism Handbook. A manual to help journalists use data and databases more effectively. Contributions from journalists at BBC, Guardian, Financial Times, New York Times, and Zeit Online.
Europe’s Energy. A website to help people understand EU energy targets, and how different countries are progressing towards them. Launched at a European Council meeting on energy policy.
The #opendata film. A short film explaining what open data is and why it matters. Translated into 24 languages.
Open GLAM. A global network of people and organisations who are working to open up material held by Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums.
Open Government Data Camp. An international hands-on workshop for people interested in releasing and reusing official information. Convened representatives from the UN, World Bank, White House, Cabinet Office and governments and civil society organisations from over 40 countries around the world.
Panton Fellowships. Fellowships to promote open data in science. For more details, see the original concept note.
The Public Domain Review. A web-based review of works which have entered the public domain. Includes curated collections of images, texts and films, and contributed articles from writers, scholars and artists.
TEXTUS. An open source platform for working with collections of texts. Funded by JISC, and developed in association with the Goldsmiths, University of London and the University of Oxford. TEXTUS powers OpenPhilosophy.org.
Where Does My Money Go?. A project to show UK citizens how public funds are spent. Won a prize from the Cabinet Office and then funded by Channel 4. This has led to an effort to map spending around the world with the OpenSpending project.
He is an irregular contributor to the Guardian and has been interviewed by numerous publications about his work, including La Repubblica, O’Reilly Radar, and Zeit Online.
To see what he is doing at the Open Knowledge Foundation you can follow @jwyg on Twitter.
Jonathan Gray