Join our Nigerian fellow Nkechi Okwuone to learn about the why and the how of building a community, as illustrated by her experience as an open data project manager in the Edo, Nigeria. Community building in Nigeria (or similar regions) presents its own sets of challenges, so tune in to see how to address them.

1. Community building
around Edo state
Open data Portal in
Nigeria
PRESENTED BY
Okwuone Nkechi
School of data Fellow Nigeria
@enkayfreda
21st November, 2015.

2. What we will be talking about
1. What is a community
2. Why starting one was important
3. My community building experience
4. Challenges of organizing a community in Nigeria
5. Some generous tips
6. Reference and Resources

3. Target Audience

4. This should be useful to ...
● Civil Societies
● NGOs
● Tech Communities
● other Enthusiasts
… and anyone that has a pressing social problem and does
not want to solve it alone.

5. What is a
community?

6. A community: what is it ?
Wikipedia

7. Why starting one
was important..

8. What is the Open data community like
in Nigeria?
● Open data is a very new topic
● Transparency is not a much talked about topic.
● Inclusive and participatory governance has not been our
way of life
● Advocacy and civic engagement is mostly done without
technology
● Edo state is the only state out of 36 states that has an
open data portal

9. Some problems couldn’t be solved alone
● There was a disconnect between the supply and user
demand of open data
● Demand was being placed on us for open data to
translate into economic use
● The stakeholders (Government, CSOs) were interested
in exploring how this can work.
● Open data is a new jargon in Nigeria and people can’t
just understand what the fuss is all about

10. My Community
building experience

11. To get a pulse of the open data
community?
● We sent out surveys to find like minds
● Did an hangout to create awareness and a community
needs assessment
● We created a communication system (both offline and
online)
● Drew out a road map to actively engage them for the first
6 months.

12. Lessons Learnt
•A community is as vibrant as its leader
•If you are not registered/associated or backed up, you are
not recognized
•You will have to learn on your community and re-strategise
regularly
•The community will always plateau
•Double effort is needed to make a case as to why you have
chosen your goal for starting a community

13. Lessons Learnt Contd...
•Be empathetic but disciplined and focused
•You alone cannot change the world. - Pick a problem and
get good at solving it.

14. Challenges of organizing
a community in Nigeria

15. Existing challenges
•Literacy level is quite low - 59.6% (wikipedia)
•Internet penetration is low - 30% (network world)
•There are more offline than online people
•People are easily distracted or dissuaded

16. How we work around
these challenges

17. Low literacy level
•We always test our audience with little task to know how
basic we should go.
•We have an agenda but keep it a bit open to cater for side
interests
•When talking about open data - We have more time for
questions than actually teaching
•Use cases are actually our best cases.

18. Low internet penetration
•We use charts, markers, stick notes
•We don't use and online
presentation documents and always
give them a take home folder of
resources
•Get them to document their ideas,
this form as input to next sessions.
•if we have to use the internet, We
always have a plan B

19. More People Offline than online
● We try to visualize and
conceptualize on paper
● We still use fliers, group letters
and word of mouth for publicity
● Seek for opportunities for
collaboration on their ideas and
projects
● We end events by collecting
their skill needs and hold regular
meetups to address them

20. Thinking about Nigeria?
● Come with an open mind
● Have a bucket load of patience
● Resilience and consistency is a must have skill
● Never expect too much
● Always have a plan B in all your plans
● You have to be dogged
● Be prepared to go as basic as basic

21. Questions

22. Resources
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate
2. http://www.networkworld.com/article/2860254/tech-telecom-contribute-
10-percent-of-nigerias-gdp-ict-minister-says.html