At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, organisations around the world implemented work-from-home policies. The Open Institute was not left behind, however, our Finance Director and Trustee has been a remote worker for years.
Jay Bhalla has managed to understand the dynamics of remote work, having worked in a different time zone from the rest of the team and managing a team remotely.
His passion and work ethic continues to be an inspiration to the Open Institute team as we learn how to be collaborate virtually while being effective in everything we do.
Trustee, Open Institute
We envision a future with an open society that is managed by informed, fact-driven citizens.
This society features a responsive and accountable government that delivers the services its citizens need at the level of service they deserve.
It includes active non-state actors who play an active role in educating citizens on their role as responsible and active citizens safeguarding democracy and development.Our Mission is to collaborate with governments, citizens, civil society organisations and other players to develop policies, tools and knowledge that strengthen citizens’ voices in the governance and development in their societies.
We work to build citizen capacity to use data for better engagement with government and other stakeholders for better resource allocation and development outcomes, and achievement of global and national goals.
We work with subnational governments to build their statistical capacity for better transparency and accountability, while providing technical support to establish structures to better listen to and engage with citizens.
The Ability Project aims to gather data around the Nairobi Central Business District and clearly mark out how accessible these every day environments really are, by using the globally recognized concept of Universal Design as our compass.
We work to improve the working environment for artisanal small scale miners as well as to build on the body of knowledge for the achievement of Kenya’s policy goals in the mining industry. We recognise artisanal small scale mining potential and the need to create a conducive ecosystem to foster its development.
The #RestoreDataRights movement aims to work with governments and other stakeholders towards realising a transparent, inclusive and accountable COVID-19 response in Africa and beyond by working to foster trust in the handling of people’s sensitive personal data.
To monitor the COVID-19 pandemic, we created Nuru as a tool to crowdsource observations about how citizens are coping in the exceptionally difficult circumstances brought on by the virus, with the aim of inspiring engagement with civil society, governments and other stakeholders to take action and effect change in their communities.
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