Today Eric and Dave are at the launch of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), an international effort to secure commitments from governments to promote transparency, participation, and use of technology to improve government. The United States posted its plan to achieve this in the Open Government National Action Plan. We are there to talk about how to use maps to tell stories and improve the services of government. This morning Eric and Dave participated in a “How To Alley”, where they demoed how to use our map design studio TileMill and map hosting service TileStream to quickly and easily make compelling maps with geo data and get them online.

They also showed how USAID is doing this with the maps they released yesterday around famine in the Horn of Africa. USAID created a series of maps on factors around the famine such as rainfall, rising food prices, and relief organizations locations to more efficiently communicate this information to decision makers, aid organizations, and the public. The agency then released the maps and the data powering them all openly so they can used by other organizations to aid relief efforts.

*Eric and Dave demoing our mapping tools at the How To Alley, photo by Alex Howard.

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) is an international effort to secure commitments from governments to promote transparency, participation, and use of technology to improve government. In addition some great technology demos and panel discussions, several heads of state spoke on behalf of transparency, including Philippines President Benigno Aquino, Mexican President Felipe Calderón, and even President Obama via live feed.

President Obama speaking via live feed on what the United States will do to improve openness and transparency in government.

For more information on what happened at the OGP launch, check out Alex Howard’s live blog of the day on O’Reilly Radar.