Czech Republic
Michaela Rybičková works at The Otakar Motejl Fund, a Czech non-profit which promotes open data to transform government into a transparent service and provide citizens with fair access to information. Her main project is [NášStát.cz](http://www.nasstat.cz/en/), a platform for the Czech e-democracy community. She also coordinated the Czech edition of The Data Journalism Handbook.
Czech Republic ranked #12 in the 2014 Open Data Index / Other stories from Europe
Participating in this year’s The Global Open Data Index was a great experience which enabled me to share experience with open data with experts from all around the world. I also had a chance to contribute to the 2013 edition and I’d say that the methodology of gathering and evaluating information improved. When deciding how to score the datasets to get most exact outcomes, we had a lots of discussion both within the Czech open data community and amongst the international team.
As the results show us, the current state of open data in the Czech Republic is promising, but there is still a good deal of unfulfilled potential. While there are pioneering institutions (such as The Czech Statistical Office or The Czech Office for Surveying, Mapping and Cadastre), there is no solid conception on the national level. I think that the Index shows that we are on the right track, but still have a long road ahead of us. I hope that the Index can help us to advocate for better availability and quality of specific datasets as well as promote openness as a state of mind.
I think that Open Data Index is a useful survey, because it shows the state of open data in global context, building on experience and insight of a vibrant international community. Furthermore, the Index serves as a useful benchmark and helps us to gather arguments for our advocacy efforts. I’d like to thank the Index team for cooperation and methodological advice. I’m also grateful to everyone who contributed to the Czech part of the Index: Michal Kubáň, my colleague from Otakar Motejl Fund, Jan Kučera and Jindřich Mynarz from University of Economics in Prague, datajournalist Jan Cibulka and geodata specialist Jáchym Čepický.
