We are pleased to announce that Publish What You Fund is joining a new coalition aimed at joining up data standards. The Joined Up Data Alliance brings together experts in development cooperation, humanitarian relief, public contracting and natural resource governance to collaborate on the development and use of data standards.

Rupert Simons, CEO of Publish What You Fund, said:

“We are living through a data revolution. Every day there are new data sets being published. But the proliferation of standards makes it difficult to interpret this data, like trying to read a book written in different languages. We want to join up the standards so users can talk to each other. Not by imposing a single language, but by making it easier to translate them.”

The Joined-Up Data Alliance is based on the principle of user-centered design. It will seek common, open solutions to common problems, starting by developing “organisation identifiers“, an approach to identify governments, government departments and agencies around the world. 

Publish What You Fund is participating in the project with support from the Omidyar Network. For more on the Alliance, please see the joint announcement and statement of collaboration.