Six US government agencies, including the National Science Foundation, NASA, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Justice, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Geological Survey, have launched the Prototype Open Knowledge Network (Proto-OKN) program to build an integrated data and knowledge infrastructure or an open knowledge network. The program will provide$20 million in funding to prototype scalable, cloud-based technical infrastructure to help solve problems in healthcare, space, criminal justice, climate change and other areas. The Proto-OKN funding will support public data infrastructure and fund research in three categories: use cases, fabric, and education and public engagement.