We've been working hard on the Open Government Platform (OGPL), an open source capability for open data and open government around the world. This has been an active collaboration with the National Infomatics Centre of the Government of India and the US Government Data.gov team. The decision to move to an open source platform has been both challenging and rewarding.

As with any open source capability, the code is only as strong as the community. I appreciate those of you who have downloaded the code, helped to test it, and provided feedback. We are getting close to releasing the first complete package of OGPL and would like to get your ideas, feedback, and commits before we proceed. To help with this, we will be holding two information webinars this week (Wednesday and Thursday, December 19 and 20, 2012), and have updated the code and documentation on Github.

Please join in on one of the webinars that is convenient (times are optimized for different areas of the world where our many developer volunteers are).

Agenda

• Introduction to OGPL
• http://opengovplatform.org/
• Preparing to releaae OGPL v. 1
• Code and documentation status (currently labeled "beta")
• https://github.com/opengovplatform/opengovplatform-beta
• Examples from India, Ghana and US
• http://data.gov.in
• http://data.gov.gh
• http://data.gov
• How to get involved (developers, testers, others)
• Looking ahead to OGPL v.2
• Drupal 7 + CKAN
• Discussion
• To ask a question, ask first in the chat window and then you will be called on

Wednesday, December 19, 11:00 am-12:00 pm (Eastern U.S. time, EST)

• Check your time zone at http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=OGPL+Welcome+%28Americas+time%29&iso=20121219T08&p1=783&ah=1
• To join the web conference, go to https://mpweb7.jpl.nasa.gov/a/f5d35f5893570260530917ef9934659a
• To join the audio conference, dial in via the toll-free number at 1-866-328-8761 and when prompted enter meeting ID 4545.
• During the discussion, to ask questions, please ask first in the chat window and then you will be called on

Thursday, December 20, 2:00-3:00 pm (India time, IST)

• Check your time zone at http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=OGPL+Welcome+%28Americas+time%29&iso=20121219T08&p1=783&ah=1
• To join the web conference, go to https://mpweb7.jpl.nasa.gov/a/f5d35f5893570260530917ef9934659a
• To join the audio conference, dial in via the toll-free number at 1-866-328-8761 and when prompted enter meeting ID 4545. For those overseas, you can call this number via Skype and connect that way.
• During the discussion, to ask questions, please ask first in the chat window and then you will be called on

Welcome again to the OGPL community and thank you for your contributions now and in the future. If you have any questions or suggestions, please post them in the comments below.  To join the list for developers, you can subscribe at
https://listserv.gsa.gov/cgi-bin/wa.exe?SUBED1=OGPL-DEVELOPERS&A=1

Welcome aboard!

-- Jeanne Holm, Evangelist, Data.gov