Keith McDonald
Public Engagement & Communications + Open Data Advocate
Keith is a “Public Engagement & Communications Specialist” with a diverse career in communications & teaching roles that includes a solid Workshop and Presentation Skills bent. He’s worked directly for and with the City of Toronto, TVOntario, UNICEF Canada and Centennial College among others.
For TVOntario and the Scarborough Health Department, Keith personally developed and delivered over 1500 workshops on Media Literacy (TVO) and Healthy Lifestyles (SHD). His specialty is conducting entertaining education sessions that challenge, inform and inspire learning for adults and youth.
He is a firm believer in open and transparent government and the open data arena has been his most recent area of practice for the last 10 years. As the Open Data Lead for the City of Toronto (2012-2016), he provided over 60% of the total public engagements for the Open Data/Open Government initiative during that period of time. Several of Keith’s educational materials – including his unofficial Open Data National Anthem, the Open Data Song – have gone viral: from Toronto to London to Sydney to Shanghai and back again. In 2017, he developed and delivered “Data Eh?” – pilot public open data education sessions for the Toronto Public Library and he also is a Co-host of the The Open Toronto Data Book Club that meets monthly.
In Keith’s own words:
I bring a somewhat cheeky and playful pop-culture-loving-attitude to my work. If you’re not careful, I might write you a song – inspired by your words and thoughts and those around us.