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Convening for Digital Commons

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Let's Join Hands to Build the Digital Commons

The Convening Digital Commons initiative aims to advance a system-wide dialogue on how data, technology, and institutions can collectively serve the public good. It focuses on shaping shared digital infrastructure that strengthens governance, climate action, and community-led development.

The convening emphasizes open standards, interoperability, and stewardship so that information systems remain inclusive, transparent, and useful for local decision-making. It promotes shared learning, innovation, and policy coherence across sectors.

By bringing together practitioners, institutions, and communities, this two-day dialogue supports practical pathways for co-creation, implementation, and long-term collaboration around Digital Commons.

Purpose of the Convening

The convening aims to bring together organisations working across resource governance, geospatial systems, community-centred design, data interoperability, and technology for public good. Our shared purpose is to:

Build a common understanding of what Digital Commons means for India’s development and governance systems.

Surface key architectural, governance, and stewardship principles required for scale.

Look at the ecosystem practices of funding, creating data and tools in isolation, towards a common approach with stewardship — e.g. open source community or open data initiatives in a community.

Identify opportunities to co-create the necessary building blocks enabled by interoperability, trust, and stewardship.

Shape a coherent pathway for near-term pilots and long-term institutional collaboration supported by ecosystem partners.

This event aims to create a space for collective thinking, problem-solving, and alignment aimed at outcomes that can lead to actions in the short and mid-term.

What the Two Days Will Explore

Through curated talks, anchored dialogues, and collaborative sessions, this event will engage participants on:

  • Why Digital Commons matter for governance, local decision-making, climate resilience, and development outcomes.
  • Recognising that there are multiple data and platform initiatives in the ecosystem that need collaboration and coordination to achieve the digital commons.
  • Architectural foundations: data standards, interoperability layers (e.g. information models, semantics), and shared digital infrastructure (e.g. software architecture, components).
  • Community-centred governance models rooted in trust, accountability, and stewardship.
  • Translating data into action through decision-support tools, workflows, and validation processes.
  • Future-facing institutional arrangements for sustaining Digital Commons at scale.

Together, these conversations aim to generate shared insights, practical frameworks, and the early agreements needed for collective action.

Organising Partners

Each institution brings complementary strengths from standards and innovation to field governance, from engineering infrastructure to water systems intelligence, and from spatial planning to community stewardship, making this a uniquely equipped collaboration to advance the Digital Commons agenda.

Arghyam logo
CEPT Research and Development Foundation (CRDF) logo
CoRE Stack logo
Foundation for Ecological Security logo
Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) logo

Join the Shared Commons Journey

The convening aims to create a space for collective thinking, problem-solving, and alignment that leads to practical frameworks, early agreements, and short to mid-term collective action.

For more information you can write to us at — io.convene@fes.org.in