This is part of a series of posts from the engine room’s collaboration with the Transparency International People Engagement Programme. It includes 1) the initiative’s strategic plan and 2) ways to get involved

Read this in Spanish here.

In a few weeks, Chile Transparente will be inviting you to get to know its new data portal. The tool, called Munidatos, makes it easier for Chileans to find information about health and education in their region or community. With this information citizens will ideally be better equiped to engage with local decision makers on issues.

But how can they get their new tool out to the right people? We spoke with the Munidatos team, and then outlined a strategy for doing this.

Who are Munidatos’ Target Users?

Most Chileans are unlikely to be interested in looking through and using the data sets provided by Munidatos. In fact, only half of the population is online, and of that half only 20 percent uses the internet for news. That’s why it is so important to target outreach towards the people who are most likely to be interested in accessing this kind of data: journalists and advocacy organizations. Ideally, TI-Chile will be able to spark conversations with journalists and advocates as soon as possible. That way, they can help to shape the tool while it’s still being developed. We put together this Twitter list of influencers to reach out to in Chile.

Who are Munidatos’ Allies?

Chile – or at least Santiago – is bustling place for people interested in technology, open data and government transparency. That means that Munidatos has a lot of allies to collaborate with; each ally has its own network and audience that it can provide access to. Below are some of the actors that came up in our conversation.

Transparency NGOs and Researchers

ProAcceso, Ciudadano Inteligente (@ciudadanoi), Participa!, Transparencia, El Consejo Para La Transparencia, DAL organizers (@enzomolina @ancamatioc @ciochile) @fheusser @redmatriz @LyDChile (think tank) @CENDA_chile

Hackerspaces & Tech Support Providers

One of the themes at the 2012 Desarrollando America Latina in Chile was health. Some people who were involved include @enzomolina @InovoChile @Poderomedia @Poderopedia @Hackatons as well as @ciudadanoi and @fheusser.

El Encuentro is a space focused on narrowing the digital divide, Liberacion Digital, a network of people interested in the the internet and politics, and ONG Digital provides technology support to advocates – all great potential allies.

Potential Media Partners

There are a few up and coming independent media and investigative journalism outlets in Chile, most of which we’ve added to our Twitter list on outreach resources in Chile. The main players as far as we have seen are Ciper and El Mostrador. 

What Are Some Quick Wins For Engaging People?

• Twitter conversations are a good start. TI-Chile staff can pull short, easy-to-remember facts or comparisons from the Munidatos data – for instance, facts about particular municipalities – and direct them towards people in the relevant municipalities. This is something that fellow open data project in Sweden, Open Funds, is attempting in order to engage people with its data. 
• Conversations (even short video interviews) with local officials would allow Munidatos to create content that might interest more Chileans as well as develop working relationships with decision-makers.
• One last idea we discussed was to bring their target users into the actual process of developing Munidatos by holding events (or conference calls) to demo the platform and solicit feedback. They can even hold local, small-scale hackathons meant to bring advocacy organizations and hackers together at the local level in order to get them to do cool things with the data. 

Get Involved

The moment you’ve been waiting for! We’re looking for media outlets in Chile who might be interested in creating content partnerships with Munidatos. We also wouldn’t say no to a (native Spanish speaking) social media ninja who wants to work with TI Chile on pushing its project out through Twitter and Facebook.