Tenth Week in Phnom Penh
I can scarcely believe it but my time in Cambodia is finally over. The weeks really did fly past in the blink of an eye. Mostly, I am quite sad. I really loved living in Cambodia and I have really enjoyed my work with ODC. I feel like an entirely different person after this summer, which sounds cheesy, but it is true. I am so grateful for this experience and so lucky that I got to work with ODC.
This week, I wrapped up my review paper on commercial data packaging. This was one of my favorite projects of the summer, as I got to really deep dive into the minutia of Cambodian law, as well as address practical concerns. The whole paper was a mix between academic speculation and real-world application, which is maybe my dream assignment. Ultimately, I feel like the question of whether ODC should package and sell data is way above me and really cuts to the NGO’s future direction. There are plenty risks and rewards to both options and I really enjoyed being able to provide ODC the tools to answer that big question.
That directional decision seems to be answered now. My final task for ODC was updating their terms of service and disclaimer pages. Before, there were some discrepancies as to whether ODC was licensing its content under a noncommercial license or not. If so, then the website’s content could not be used to generate any income in any way by any user. In the end, ODC definitively settled on employing a noncommercial license. Updating the terms of service page to reflect that decision felt like the culmination of my research paper on data sale. ODC has elected to not allow commercial use of its content; therefore, it likely will not elect to sell specially packaged data to commercial entities either. Clearly, ODC has elected to not risk the social reputation that might come with business-like operations and has instead opted to appeal to donors, aligning strictly with its integral mission: open data for everyone and for free.
It was fun to have two of my project intertwine together in the end, my data sale review paper and the terms of service updates. As such, I am glad that my work was meaningful and had a direct, immediate benefit on ODC and its future. I am also proud of my legal aid page work, though it still needs some tuning. I will continue to work on the legal aid page until it is published, as I believe it a truly valuable resource for many of ODC’s online visitors. As soon as I know all my writing on Cambodian law is accurate and complete, I will continue to break down the article into increasingly accessible syntax and vocabulary.
Overall, I think ODC is an amazing NGO filled with talented, motivated people who truly care about Cambodia and its future. While Cambodia is not perfect and faces many challenges, I am incredibly inspired by the perseverance and hope of its citizens. Every Khmer person I spoke to on my travels was so well informed about their country, its history, and their dreams for progress. It was a real honor to be invited to work in Cambodia for a summer and, hopefully, contribute to its future in some small way. I know ODC will continue to make incredible strides in providing open data to the public and, as a result, continue to enable the country’s development and growth. I hope to always be involved with ODC, in some way or another, and that I will always maintain the friendships I made overseas. In short, many thanks to ODC and to Try, ODC's Director, for giving me this incredible experience in Phnom Penh; it was simply #phnomenal.
