The Green and Social Hours Initiative:

In 2022, the Open Data Unit, in the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery, and Reform, developed a framework for procurement of technical services for general data management and Open Data publishing. This technical framework is currently managed by the Office of Government Procurement (OGP). Amongst the terms of the framework is that the winning tenderer, Derilinx in this case, provides a number of hours support under a ‘green and social’ provision of the contract. The number of hours is based on the amount of worked received via the framework. This means that they provide a number of hours free of charge advising, coaching, lecturing or mentoring organisations with a green, social or educational remit, as part of their contract with the OGP.  Their areas of expertise are data audit, management and Open Data publishing.

There are many organisations that can avail of these hours. Some examples would be universities or colleges and their Data Societies, Open Data Engagement Fund winners or organisations with an environmental, community or social remit.The Open Data Unit will then liaise with the organisation and put them in contact with Derilinx and the OGP to come up with a tailored plan for each organisation. With Derilinx, the organisation will assess their data priorities. The organisation will then work closely with Derilinx to achieve such priorities. These pro bono hours could come in the form of helping the organisation conduct a data audit, clean their data, establish better data collection and management methods, or assist them in publishing their data.

One organisation who greatly benefitted from the Green and Social Hours Initiative was Smart Dublin. In 2022, Smart Dublin conducted The Dublin Region Open Data Climate Action Challenge which sought innovative ideas and applications that used Open Data to drive climate action. As part of the Green and Social Hours Initiative, Smart Dublin availed of support from Derilinx and collaborated with them on the challenge. Derilinx were part of the organising committee. They reviewed climate data for the challenge, mentored participants and assisted in the judging of the projects. They also provided marketing support and promoted the challenge through online channels such as on their website and social media. In addition to this, Derilinx also provided mentoring support to Smart Dublin during their Air Quality Hackathon in 2023 in partnership with Google and Aclima as part of the 2022/2023 Open Data Engagement Fund. During the Hackathon, the winning tenderer, under the Green and Social Initiative offered mentorship to participants on the day who were using Open Data to come up with solutions to air pollution. They have also worked closely with other Open Data Engagement Fund winners such as eTownz, NUIG, and the Innovation Value Institute at Maynooth University providing a variety of data consultancy services.

If you know any organisations or groups you believe could benefit from these hours please get in touch at opendata@per.gov.ie.