Open Knowledge Brasil
Open Knowledge Brasil (OKBR) is a non-profit and non-partisan civil society organisation that has operated in the country since 2013. We develop and encourage the use of civic technologies and open data, conduct public policy analysis, and promote free knowledge to make the relationship between government and society more transparent and participatory. OKBR has established itself over the last decade as a leading national reference at the intersection of technology, data, and democracy. Our organisation not only advocates for transparency but also builds the tools and capacities necessary to exercise it. Through Escola de Dados, we have trained more than 30,000 people in data literacy, developing a bespoke methodology that translates technical complexity into the language of citizenship. Escola de Dados organises Coda.Br, one of Latin America's leading data journalism conferences and the Cláudio Weber Abramo Data Journalism Award. Its projects include Querido Diário (recognised as a digital public good by the DPGA) and specialised courses on Brazil's Freedom of Information (LAI) legislation for investigative reporting. Throughout the last decade, OKBR has played a key role in strengthening Brazil's open-data and civic-technology ecosystem, including through Operação Serenata de Amor, one of the country's early and best-known applications of data science and AI to civic auditing: our algorithms flagged approximately 9,000 cases of potentially irregular public spending involving hundreds of legislators, drawing coverage from major national and international media. As OKBR's civic-technology focus shifted toward Querido Diário, active development of Serenata de Amor was wound down, but it remains a foundational reference for the organisation's track record in applying AI to public-interest data analysis. OKBR also helped launch Parlametria: making sense of legislative data (parlametria.org) in November 2019, contributing to its initial development before transitioning full stewardship to partner organisations in 2021; its aim was to empower citizens and organisations to monitor National Congress proceedings, spending, and policy debates.
