Bangladesh still isn’t very friendly to data. Researchers and journalists often don’t have access to the information they need. Many decisions in government, research, and daily life are made based on instincts, not facts. Even when national data is available, it’s often locked inside printed reports or non-editable PDF files. That means they can’t be searched, reused, or analyzed properly.
But things are changing. The government has recently started publishing more public data and making it available for scrutiny. This is a big win for those who believe in open knowledge. To take this momentum forward, we hosted an Open Data and Open Data Editor (ODE) workshop at Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU). BAU is the second-largest university in the country and the largest one focused on agriculture. It both produces and uses massive amounts of data – on crops, livestock, fisheries, genetics, climate, GIS, and much more.
