Open Source Tools for Local Action on the SDGs

Implementation of the SDGs in L.A. was initiated by a grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation through the Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles. This initial grant has enabled the development and implementation of L.A.’s work to align and report on the SDGs, as well as both Open SDG and the Activities Index. In addition to the grant funding, we have also received in kind support from five key local university partners: Occidental College, University of Southern California, Arizona State University, University of California Los Angeles, and Pomona College. The Open SDG platform was localized for L.A. in partnership with the Center for Open Data Enterprise (CODE), the City’s Information Technology Agency (ITA), and with support from the Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles. Since Open SDG is not proprietary, there were no licensing costs associated with the deployment of the platform locally. Several modifications were needed to ensure the platform reflected a local government reality. All those changes are recorded in an open Wiki that can be accessed by other cities or organizations that may want to deploy their own platforms. The Open SDG platform is maintained by the project team with support from student interns through academic partnerships. The Activities Index was custom made for Los Angeles using open source frameworks. The code and implementation instructions for the Activities Index are also available in a public Wiki accessible by other cities and organizations, for free and for their own use. The initial list of projects included in the Activities Index was inputted by a team of student interns and additional entries are crowdsourced from the community. Any organization doing work to advance the SDGs in Los Angeles can input their efforts into this growing database.