Nikesh Balami is a civic entrepreneur, open data advocate, and tech researcher. He is the co-founder and CEO of Open Knowledge Nepal, a non-profit civic tech organization comprised of openness aficionados. Alongside this, he also manages the international open data network at Open Knowledge Foundation.
He is a strong supporter of open-source software and believes in the vision of Open Knowledge to empower citizens regarding technology usage and open data. He loves coffee chat, tweeting, hackathons, blogging, traveling, and open data. Nikesh is a Shuttleworth Flash Grantee 2016 and U.S. Embassy Youth Council member 2017/18.
In parallel with his activities at Open Knowledge Nepal, he is also engaged with Artificial Intelligence for Development as a founding member. Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Nepal community as an executive member, and Youth IGF Nepal as a founding member. Previously, Nikesh also worked with Code for Nepal as a program coordinator. In his daily work schedule, he coordinates diverse projects related to tech & data, writes research & reports, scrapes & harvests government data, and sometimes codes. He has a long experience of working with private, nonprofit, and government organizations.
