Hi All<div><br></div><div>There might be some in this group who would interested in this event - HacksHackers Cape Town (and JHB) are holding meet-ups next week focusing on opening up corporate information. Chris Taggart of OpenCorporates is coming to speak about the project . The catering is generally pretty good and there are great networking opportunities with techies, journalists and activists and other groups. </div>

<div><br></div><div>The full invitation can be found here: <a href="http://hackshackers.co.za/pages/hh-meetup-open-corporates-invite.html">http://hackshackers.co.za/pages/hh-meetup-open-corporates-invite.html</a>. Below is an excerpt. If you're thinking of coming - please register here: <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEFUWmNlUEpBZkpndnZoYk1uRUFiMVE6MA">https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEFUWmNlUEpBZkpndnZoYk1uRUFiMVE6MA</a> - entrance is free.</div>

<div><br></div><div><p class="c10" style="font-size:11pt;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;font-family:Arial;direction:ltr;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span class="c4" style="font-size:10pt">---- snip ---</span></p>

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The “open data” movement is transforming governments’ accountability to citizens. But what about companies?</span></p><p class="c0" style="font-size:11pt;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;font-family:Arial;height:11pt;direction:ltr;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">

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<span class="c4" style="font-size:10pt">Highly interconnected global companies have exploded in complexity and power, and increasingly affect our lives for good and bad. Yet in tandem with this growth, corporate governance has weakened. The opacity and complexity of this corporate world is a key enabler of corruption, tax avoidance and organised crime.</span></p>

<p class="c0" style="font-size:11pt;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;font-family:Arial;height:11pt;direction:ltr;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span class="c4" style="font-size:10pt"></span></p>

<p class="c10" style="font-size:11pt;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;font-family:Arial;direction:ltr;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span class="c4" style="font-size:10pt">Until now painstaking manual investigation has been required to track even the most basic facts about a company, such as whether it exists, and who owns it. Chris Taggart of </span><span class="c1" style="color:rgb(17,85,204);font-size:10pt;text-decoration:underline"><a class="c3" href="http://opencorporates.com/" style="text-decoration:inherit">OpenCorporates.com</a></span><span class="c4" style="font-size:10pt"> believes it’s time to change that. Chris is building an open access database with basic information on every corporate entity in the world (including 32,000 South African companies and counting), which can then be remixed and combined with other data, such as government contracts.</span></p>

<p class="c0" style="font-size:11pt;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;font-family:Arial;height:11pt;direction:ltr;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span class="c4" style="font-size:10pt"></span></p>

<p class="c10" style="font-size:11pt;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;font-family:Arial;direction:ltr;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span class="c4" style="font-size:10pt">We invite all those with an interest in issues of corruption and transparency to a hands-on practical session to learn about Chris’s techniques and how you can put them to work for you.</span></p>

<div><br></div>-- <br>Adi Eyal<br>Data Specialist<br>phone: +27 78 014 2469<br>skype: adieyalcas<br>linkedin: <a href="http://za.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Adi/Eyal" target="_blank">http://za.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Adi/Eyal</a></div>

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