The Caribbean Open Institute

The Caribbean Open Institute (COI) is a regional coalition of individuals and organizations that promotes open development approaches to inclusion, participation and innovation within the Caribbean, using open data as a catalyst. The COI conducts the following primary activities:

  • Awareness, advocacy and engagement with public sector stakeholders on Open Government and Open Data:
  • Regional capacity building in a core set of technology platforms, tools and standards that are being commonly used across the Open Data universe
  • Demand-side research initiatives, exploring and building evidence of the potential impacts of Open Data initiatives in various thematic sectors
  • Staging of the annual “Developing the Caribbean” Open Data Conference and Codesprint (DevCA) as an important regional forum for awareness, engagement and experimentation on Open Data initiatives

The COI is a member of the Open Data for Development (OD4D) network and an active participant in the broad open data community, bringing the Caribbean's nuanced voice to contribute to the global discourse and partnerships for sustainable development using Data as a catalyst.

 

A Regional Coalition

Pause

Caribbean ICT Research Programme

The Caribbean ICT Research Programme comprises a team within the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of the West Indies. CIRP utilizes a range of methodologies that span multiple disciplines to effect unbroken coherence between fundamental and applied research and practical ICT interventions at the individual and community levels.

SlashRoots Foundation

Designs digital services and tools to transform the relationship between Caribbean governments and citizens. Having started as a community of developers, designers and entrepreneurs from across the region, sharing knowledge through an online mailing list and exploring how technology could positively affect the Caribbean, Slashroots now helps governments and other social impact organizations achieve their missions and empower communities by better using technology and data.

Fundación Taigüey

A non-Governmental and not for Profit organization, founded in 2003, and legally established in the Dominican Republic. Its’ Mission is “to promote, implement, support and assess the processes of social transformation at the community level, promoting participative methodologies and the use of appropriate technologies". It’s vision is for the positive transformation of communities, also called human or sustainable development, progress or advancement.

Mona School of Business & Management

The premier provider of business education, research and consulting in Jamaica and the region., with diversified programmes and delivery  modes and a high-quality curriculum, shaped by global trends but oriented towards the reality of the Caribbean context. MSBM is ranked by Eduniversal International Scientific Committee among the top 1,000 Business Schools in the World in the League of "Good Business Schools with regional influence.

International Development Research Centre

The International Development Research Centre (IDRC, the Centre) is a Canadian Crown corporation established by an act of Parliament in 1970. IDRC was created to help developing countries find solutions to their problems. It encourages, supports, and conducts research in the world’s developing regions, and seeks to apply new knowledge to the economic and social improvement of those regions.

COI Origins & Evolution

The Caribbean Open Institute was conceptualized by a community of Caribbean stakeholders and sponsored by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) as an initiative that seeks to facilitate the emergence of a Caribbean Knowledge Economy. The ideas emerged from the workshop, “Towards a Caribbean Open Institute: Data, Communications and Impact”, that was hosted by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), June 30 – July 1, 2010 at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, Kingston, Jamaica. It brought together international experts and stakeholders in the Caribbean to explore opportunities for strengthening policy-oriented research in the region and was attended by nearly 40 high-level stakeholders in the area of public policy research from across the region. 

The following graphic depicts significant events in the COI's timeline: