Open Call for ideas: 2020 GeOnG forum

Guest post by Nina Eissen from CartONG, organizers of the GeOnG Forum.

The 7th edition of the GeOnG Forum on Humanitarian and Development Data will take place from November 2^nd to 4^th, 2020 in Chambéry (France). CartONG is launching an Open Call for Suggestions.

Organized by CartONG every two years since 2008, the GeOnG forum gathers humanitarian and development actors and professionals specialized in information management. The GeOnG is dedicated to addressing issues related to data in the humanitarian and development sectors, including topics related to mapping, GIS, data collection & information management. To this end, the forum is designed to allow participants to debate current and future stakes, introduce relevant and innovative solutions and share experience and best practices. The GeOnG is one of the biggest independent fora on the topic in Europe, with an average of 180 participants from 90 organizations in the last three editions.

The main theme of the 2020 edition will be: “People at the heart of Information Management: promoting responsible and inclusive practices”. More information about the choice of this main theme is available here.

We also invite you to discover the 2020 GeOnG teaser here: 

To submit your ideas, please use this online form. The Open Call for Suggestions will remain open until the end of May 2020.

A few topics we hope to see covered during the 2020 GeOnG Forum:

• How to better integrate vulnerable populations into the data life cycle, with a focus on ensuring that the data collected is particularly representative of populations at risk of discrimination.
• How to implement the Do No Harm approach in relation to data: simple security & protection measures, streamlining of data privacy rights in programming, algorithmization of data processing, etc.
• What is the role of the often considered ‘less direct stakeholders’ of humanitarian and development data (such as civil society actors, governments, etc.) so as to identify clearer pathways to share the data that should be shared for the common good and protect the data that should clearly not be shared.
• How to promote data literacy beyond NGO information management and M&E staff to facilitate data-driven decision making.
• How to ensure that tools and solutions used and promoted by humanitarian and development organizations are also sufficiently user-friendly and inclusive (for instance by limiting in-built biases and promoting human-centric design).
• Beyond the main theme of the conference, don’t hesitate to send us any idea that you think might be relevant for the next GeOnG edition (about tools, methodologies, lessons learned, feedback from the field, etc.)!

Registration for the conference will open in the Spring of 2020.