As a partner of Corruption Research Centre Budapest, Precognox is participating in the DIGIWHIST Horizon 2020 project.
The project is lead by the University of Cambridge, other members of the consortium are
– ERCAS (Hertie Schoool of Covernance)
– Corruption Research Centre Budapest
– Datlab
– Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland
– Transcrime
The original aim of DIGIWHIST was to build a platform that can analyze procurement data from 35 European countries in various languages. During the years, however, the list has been expanded with further countries from Africa and Latin America. In addition, a whistleblower platform has also been implemented during the project.
As part of the project, Precognox has collected public procurement data and processed them using the Digiwhist framework. Data from Tanzania, Romania, Poland, Mexico, Kenya and Uruguay have been collected so far, among other countries. Brazilian public procurement data is currently being collected.
In addition to collecting data on certain countries, we also made updates on the processing framework itself and we helped with technical details when applying for grants to keep the project going. Over the years, several of our colleagues have been involved in the project and we have spent approximately 3.000 hours altogether completing the tasks. Moreover, significant additional working time is expected to be required for data collection in the forthcoming years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ1ijVgKUhE
Dr Mihaly Fazekas talks about DIGIWHIST project
Working with experts
In this project we had the privilege of working with an extremely competent and experienced professional, Mihaly Fazekas (director and founder of Government Transparency Institute, scientific coordinator of the Horizon 2020 at University of Cambridge and assistant professor at Central European University).
He had also participated in the development of a system that may be considered as a prelude to DIGIWHIST. In this pilot project, a set of corruption measurement instruments and indicators had been applied, based on big data in public procurement, rich datasets from government contracts and political office-holder data.
Thanks to the knowledge and experience of Mr. Fazekas and the professional IT background provided by our company, the joint work was really fruitful. And Mr. Fazekas seems to have the same opinion in his comment:
“I had the pleasure to work with Precognox on multiple occasions to build databases using online, semi-structured public procurement data. They always delivered us excellent quality data even on tight deadlines. They are easy to communicate with; they understand our demands and deliver exactly what we need. I would recommend Precognox highly to anyone who is looking for a company that works precisely and generates much value to its clients.” – said Mihaly Fazekas.
The project can be considered particularly successful for our company as well, as we have gained significant experience that can be utilized well in other cases of data collection processes in the future. We also acknowledge the public benefits of the Digiwhist project.
Learn more about How does data help to fight corruption.
