OpenCon 2015

It's very interesting to be at OpenCon as one of the few non-academic profiles, but as somebody who approaches Open Access from an NPO point-of-view (I'm a community coordinator Open Knowledge Belgium). We gather and support open advocates from community groups such as OpenStreetMap, Open Transport, Creative Commons, Open Tourism to Open Access Belgium.

The question that stuck in my mind after the first day of the conference was: How can we help promote and advocate open access and open education efforts if we're not part of that academic world? How can we support the message and create impact on the short and long term?

If this would be part of the unconference I would like to discuss how NPO's and civil society organisations can help. Is it our mission to create more general awareness? Or help create new open tools? Should/could we advocate open access on a political level? Or is this something I'm missing here? What should our focus be?