Hi Nikesh and everyone!
Regarding the date of ODD, in some years we had a problem in Brazil when it coincided with the dates for the carnival, as brings some difficulties as many people decide to travel for the week, sometimes spaces and rooms are not available, etc. But in 2023 carnival is in February, so 4th of March should be ok this time.
I believe that having the ODD in a single day is often more remarkable and brings more attention to the event, but a week long period does open up the possibility for people who have the availability to perhaps participate in more events, especially of some of them are also happening online. So I think either option would be ok. What I did not like is the many events scattered around all year long, as it was this year. I ended up knowing about most of those events just after the fact, especially the ones happening in Brazil.
For reference and ideas, I have written and shared an article about the past ODDs in Brazil.
As for the thematic focus, I understand that they have always been more of a suggestion than anything else, mostly tied to the mini grant scheme. Because ODD is a local event, people tend to focus more on local issues and local data. So letting the sponsors decide the themes for the mini grants does make some sense.
I would suggest, though, that one of those themes could be the usage of local open data, because it still is the next frontier of open data. Many municipalities, especially the medium and smaller cities, still do not have an open data initiative or portal. Other suggestions for important themes could be some of the usual: data to prevent climate change, data for accountability for deforestation, data for sustainable development, data for empowering indigenous communities, data for preserving oceans and wildlife, data about land ownership, data about corporate accountability and beneficial ownership, election data, data for tracking public money flows, etc.
Something I kind of miss was a way to exchange ideas before the events are really scheduled. The map is great to find out about events once they’ve already been decided upon, but it’s impossible to reach out to other people in advance and organize the events. The ODD wiki did, to some extent, fill that necessity before. I think mailing list does not fill in that space: I doubt that most people who organize ODD local events even read here, most of them never post anything. On the other hand, if each local event were to use this list for organizing, it would quickly get way too much traffic. The old wiki was not a perfect solution, but I do think it had an important role in it.
Congratulations for your work leading the ODD and in OK Nepal. Let’s make ODD 2023 the best yet!
PS: I’m re-posting my answer from the mailing list, as not everyone here on the forum participates there. Apologies for anyone seeing this for a second time.