The Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD) held a forum to engage stakeholders on data sharing challenges, best practices and recommendations. The meeting was organized by RCMRD’s SERVIR Eastern and Southern Africa (SERVIR-ESA) project. Participants at the breakfast meeting that brought
together scholars and scientists from various organizations concurred that there are numerous challenges to scientific data sharing among scientists and the public in Kenyan and most revolve around dissemination.
The meeting resolved to increase demand for data sharing by demystifying data as well as getting champions for open data including RCMRD and SERVIR-ESA; The Center of Agricultural Networking and Information Sharing (CANIS)/College of Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences, University of Nairobi; the Ministry of Information, Communications and Technology (ICT), the Ministry of Agriculture as well as the office of the Deputy President. The meeting decided to advocate for transformation in the secrecy culture and change of mindsets, “The day I realized that my data is valuable when shared, is the day I saw the light and started sharing it,” Prof. Simon Onywere from Kenyatta University acknowledged.
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