As innovators, policymakers, and researchers come together for this year’s ConDatos, it’s clear that data, and open data in particular, can create important new societal impacts. Open data, and other innovations like citizen engagement, civic technology platforms, and public sector innovation labs are transforming the relationship between governments and citizens, and introducing new pathways to solving major public problems. But how can data and other new problem-solving tools be leveraged in ways that improve governance and empower citizens?

Originally launched in 2015, the Open Governance Research Exchange (OGRX) is a platform that seeks to identify, collect and share curated insights on new ways of solving public problems. OGRX was created by founding partners the GovLab, World Bank Digital Engagement Evaluation Team and mySociety to improve the visibility and accessibility of open governance research – across domains like open data, crowdsourcing and civic tech. Today OGRX features 800 publications exploring new and innovative ways to solve public problems.

In view of the growth of the community that works and reflects on the use of technology to improve governance across Latin America, it became clear that there was a need for a space that not only curates the research in Spanish language but also collaborates with the promotion of the research about these subjects in the region.

It’s clear that Latin America has much to offer to the agenda of open data and civic tech. These developments are no longer framed as examples of developing countries trying to follow the agenda of first world countries, but as actions with their own weight and that contribute to the dialogue at a level of parity.

In that sense, it is not only necessary to continue working on data policies, as well as on civil society initiatives in the area, but also to encourage applied and basic research, particularly in Spanish, in critical areas. In this way, ILDA seeks to contribute to a greater development and publicity of academic production in the areas of open data and innovation in public management in Spanish language, as a key element in the promotion of these agendas in the region. In this context, with the collaboration of the GovLab and OGRX partners, RIGA was born.

In this first stage, RIGA presents a limited number of studies and articles but, with the contribution of the community in the coming months, we are confident the available resources will increase considerably. We will also post a number of selected readings on different topics as we continue to grow and expand the site. To learn more about new ways to solve public problems across Latin America – check out RIGA!