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Akshara Foundation‘s Karnataka Learning Partnership (KLP)’s Gautam John recently participated in the Open Up! Conference at London. The event was sponsored by the Omidyar Network and the UK Department for International Development, in association with WIRED Magazine.

This high-level conference brought together entrepreneurs (civic and business), governments and civil society, to galvanize action in the fast growing field of transparency and open government. Open Up! showed how web and mobile technologies can drive more engagement of citizens in government and showcase entrepreneurs’ innovations and experiences from around the world. Gautam was one of the speakers of the session -‘Participation: Empowering Citizens To Demand Change’. Along with Gautam, few of the other speakers were  Felipe Heusser (Fundacion Ciudadano Inteligente), Gustav Praekelt (Praekelt Foundation), Kepha Ngito (Map Kibera), Yemi Adamolekun (Enough is Enough Nigeria), Jay Bhalla (Open Institute), Chris Taggart (OpenCorporates) and Gavin Starks (Open Data Institute).

         Gautam John and Yemi Adamolekun in conversation with David Rowan

Each speaker had five minutes to share their insights about how to engage citizens and encourage participation. Gautam shared about his experiences of working with Open Data in KLP. His value addition to the session was that the power of open data is unleashed when local organizations can make it meaningful and actionable – institutions do not exist in a vacuum and the best way to achieve scalable, sustainable change is through collective action.

Watch Gautam speak at the conference in the below video.

Also, read more about the conference here.