Subak fellow Celina Agaton takes on the world at this month’s G20 events
When she addresses official G20 events in Indonesia on 21 and 22 June, Celina Agaton will demonstrate how her open knowledge regeneration program is radically transforming gaps in gender, climate change and supply chain data with accurate local data.
The Filipino-Canadian co-Founder of Open Knowledge Kit (OK Kit), and one of the inaugural Subak Australia[1] climate action fellows, Agaton coordinates local communities to map and collect data on climate, agriculture, technologies and available resources for tourism and creative industries.
Agaton explains how OK Kit’s 10 free and open-source tools take just two days to train mostly non-technical women in local and Indigenous communities to collect, analyse and monitor data.
“By using free and open-source software with low-cost smart phones, drones, security cameras and modems, we are able to slash the cost of data collection and analysis by at least 70 per cent. And we improve both the speed and accuracy of the data and its validation,” says Agaton. More importantly, training local communities dramatically reduces consultant fees, travel costs, and carbon footprints, allowing these savings to increase local daily wages by 200-1700 percent.
This local economic regeneration program is empowering local communities with the stewardship of their own economic, climate, and social initiatives.
Subak Australia Director, Chris Wilson says: “Celina’s mapping program shortens supply chains and minimises resource-heavy footprints in remote communities. She helps local communities create more equitable strategies in agriculture, tourism and creative industries, boosting their micro to medium enterprises with liveable wages and accurate and reliable open data.
“This open cooperation is the very foundation of the original Balinese Subak,” Wilson said.
[1] Subak Australia finds, funds, and helps to scale not-for-profit organisations and individuals to save the planet by collecting and openly sharing data that solves for climate change.
2 Agaton graduated with a BSc. in Psychology, Equity Studies and Photography from the University of Toronto. She grew up in Jakarta, Manila and Toronto.