The Digital Public Goods Alliance is a network of partners from different sectors who contribute to the identification, support, scale-up, and proper use of digital public goods, and the software, data, content and algorithms that drive them, in order to advance humanity.
What is a Digital Public Good?
A digital public good is an open-source software, open data, open AI models, open standards and open content that adhere to privacy and other applicable laws and best practices, do no harm, and help attain the SDGs.
When digital technologies and content – from data to apps, data visualisation tools to educational curricula – are freely and openly available, with minimal restrictions on how they can be distributed, adapted and reused, we can think of them as “digital public goods”.
Software, content and data must be possible to use independently of any particular vendor. This is the Alliance definition that is endorsed by the UN Secretary General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation.
Nominate a Project
We are now working to apply these standards to projects in order to identify digital public goods and test the submission process. Please nominate prospective digital public goods.
Nominating projects is a great way to both recognize the quality of an open source project and to support the DPG Alliance. Projects that are assessed through this process will be officially considered a Digital Public Good, showcased on the website and may be eligible for additional recognition and support. Additionally, each project submitted helps us to test, improve and perfect the process so that we can continue to build a large, public repository of digital public goods.
We look forward to receiving more information about your project, or projects in your network, and to increasing the prominence of open-source projects that contribute positively to the world.
Contribute to Digital Public Goods Standards
In September 2020, the DPG Alliance published the Digital Public Goods Standard 1.0. The Standard is a set of specifications and guidelines designed to maximize consensus about whether something conforms to the definition of digital public good laid out by the UN Secretary General in the 2020 Roadmap to Digital Cooperation.
The Digital Public Goods Standard 1.0 is open to contribution. Whereas the first version was developed in collaboration with key leaders in this space, including WHO, DIAL and Digital Square, we see this as a living standard that will benefit from an even wider and continuous consultation process. We highly encourage the community to provide feedback and contribute, which will be incorporated into future releases of the standard.
We also invite anyone who currently or may in the future use and benefit from the standard to join our growing list of endorsers.
Pathfinder Countries
A select group of implementing countries are referred to as Pathfinders. These countries will help evolve the Digital Public Goods Platform by defining use cases and needs, enabling policy frameworks and ensuring safeguards are in place, implementing digital public goods, and sharing lessons learnt and outcomes. The Alliance is currently in dialogue with several potential pathfinder countries in different regions of the world. Pathfinder countries must be eligible for receiving overseas development assistance.
By Lucy Harris, Co-Lead, DPG Alliance
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