Happy Open Data Week! After many years of interest in the Open Data file, I have found my way to the GC Open Government Portal. In my first few months on the file, I have picked up on a sentiment of “Open data is dead”. I’ve been trying to untangle whether this was a reflection of a burnt out and jaded public servant or if this is actually where we are. It’s certainly less shiny than it was more than 10 years ago, but there’s no shortage of work nor need in this space. Perhaps it’s not a death, but a rebirth. Bureaucrats, put your thinking caps on, it might be time for a new acronym.
This week’s post will mostly be the 2 lists below. I’m cooking up somethings that I can’t talk about just yet, but know that I am literally vibrating to be able to share. Enjoy that bit of mundane intrigue.
Bookmarked This Week
- A new publication from Munk’s School of Global Affairs and Public Policy exploring strategic options to defend Canada’s AI Literacy Sovereign by Design | AI Competitiveness Project
- A great source for ontologies, controlled vocabularies, taxonomies, and semantic software from a daily-refreshed RDF catalog: Open Knowledge Graphs
- Serious FOMO seeing the takeaways from attendees of Rules as Code Europe 2026. A future learning plan item for sure.
- Latest talk from Emily Bender on Resisting dehumanization in the age of AI - YouTube
On My Radar
Introducing another new section to the weekly posts. This is kind of the scanning for “weak signals” in foresight process1. Whereas the “Bookmarked This Week” section will be some kind of thing to read, consume, participate in; this section will be projects in flight, emerging areas of research I’m following, someone’s big ideas for the future, and the nuggets from around the internet that feel like a glimpse into a possible world. It will be accompanied by an incomplete analysis and commentary that will mostly be comprised of questions - and no answers.
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What does it mean to age with technology? We’re among the first generation to age with the internet. In multiple conversation I’ve had and observed over the last few years, people my age, around 30, went from being told not to trust anything on the internet, to watching our parents and grandparents get radicalized on Facebook and dependent on ChatGPT for companionship. Nicole Dalmer at McMaster University is exploring questions around how older adults live with and think about technology: agingresearch technologyandsociety qualitativeresearch mcmasteruniversity aging digitalsociety | Nicole Dalmer
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What does the “world order” look like when data is wielded as a tool of colonization? What might colonial resistance look like in a digital age? Reuters reported this week: Exclusive: US orders diplomats to fight data sovereignty initiatives | Reuters
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What do we actually mean by Digital Transformation or Innovation? Some have argued that we shouldn’t be even considering anything new until everything broken is fixed. Gian Durán explores in this post the framing of Public Sector Change: Innovation vs Renovation vs Transformation | Gian Durán, PhD posted on the topic | LinkedIn
Footnotes
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Training on scanning for weak signals and templates from Policy Horizons Canada: Module 3: Scanning |Policy Horizons Canada ↩