All data portals and APIs provided by the government organizations (or NGOs) have one problem - data quality. And if data is incomplete, stale or inaccurate, it is useless and sometimes even harmful. Every developer/researcher using such data starts anew, cleaning and enhancing the data. And all those efforts provide no benefits to others. We participated in a dozen of such projects, with city, state, federal and non-profit data. I believe the solution is to open the data for anyone to edit, conceptually like Wikipedia, but going one step further, giving equal access to both people and apps. I know that it immediately raises a ton of concerns, but if the system is put in place to track all modifications, and all modifications are based on a reputation system, a-la http://stackoverflow.com, then it will be a win win for everyone. We have created such a system and pitched it to the NYC government. Unfortunately they were still so excited that they provided so much of "their" data to the public, that they could not see that all previous data sharing efforts made no real impact. This is the slide deck that we presented to them. We created a set of concept apps for different branches of the NYC city government that illustrate how this Mutual Data model might work. You can see some of those apps on http://urbien.com In the last year we have evolved the model into an open source platform http://github.com/urbien/urbini and evolved the idea of shared/mutual data into a shared data graph that enables apps to form an appnet. See readme on our Github repository for more info. The idea of a shared Data Graph can be considered a next step after a Facebook Graph, which had a huge impact on people's lives and in creating a new app ecosystem.

1. Platform for Open Data
Government's goal is co-production of services with
the community to increase citizens engagement
Urbien offers Mutual Data, an upgrade of Open Data
concept, that helps achieve those goals

2. Objectives for Government
1. Integrate with all
government agencies
2. Create a structure holding
shared data
3. In a framework nurtured
by the government
4. With a lowered barrier
for development
enabling 100x more apps
App competitions tend to inspire lots of similar isolated apps, but how many really
make a difference (or money). Such a waste of talent.

3. The right structure is key
Good structure and automation
enables growth like a complex
organism.
Urbien was founded on the principles of the Semantic Web.
The platform is a living breathing Web of Data

4. Built for Agile Development
1 grab data
2 define model
3 web & mobile apps
Grab the data (pull or push), load them as linked data defined by the model, use
them as Web and Mobile apps immediately. Additional logic can be added later.

5. Built for Cooperation
City and businesses work together
Developers can too
Creating an environment where developers can build apps, share code and build
on top of other apps

6. Every piece of data has a URL
agencies
near real-time flow
applications
businesses
communities
developers
A rich semantic model allows to import data in close to real time without losing data
normalisation. It keep data linked with Web URLs and presents the data for bidirectional access to people and apps.

7. Shared Data - Level 1
Search / Filter
Search/Filter Grid
Search/Filter Rows
Add / Edit / Delete
Add data via UI (click +Game)
Edit via UI
Export
Entire Dataset (Parks)
Any Subset (Parks in W. Bronx)
Urbien Open Data platform offers data exploring, export in multiple formats and in
any imaginable subset, data editing, but most importantly all data are linked.

8. Shared Data - Level 2
Each new app takes advantage of
the built-in capabilities
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Login/signup via social
Social connect
Megabase of data models
OAUTH 2.0
Shared userbase
Mobile/cross-browser support
Rich Text Editor
Audio/Video Support
Search/Filter
Blogging
Image processing and Galleries
Payments (Amazon & PayPal),
Multilingual/Translation support
Bookmarks
Email marketing
Cloud Infrastructure
Backups/Upgrades/S3 Storage
Referral marketing
Security
All apps get access to the shared dataspace!
Reputation System
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Promotes contributors
Stifles the spam
Data-value-specific control
Gamey
Levels galore
Add Comment (anyone can)
Add Tennis Game (most can)
Add Wifi (some can)
Add Publisher (must be trusted)

9. Social Integration
See App posts to Facebook Timeline live
Objects such as businesses, sports and activities can become timeline apps to
show social activities on facebook.

10. Expanding the user base
Gϵεκs / Ninjas
Gϵεκs / Ninjas + Everyone else
From Geeks and Hackers to all Citizens. Urbien is built so that regular users can
interact with any data. Multilingual, mobile, etc. The Web 2.0 revolution was
about users creating content, Open Data doesn't reflect that at the moment.

11. Data for all
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Data heads
Developers
Explorers
Gamers
Data and structure in Urbien can be discovered and consumed

12. One Web API
Single DB-like API
Create/read/update/delete (CRUD) uniform for all data types:
e.g. Business, Neighborhood, Profile, Comment, etc.
For use on Server & Client (JS and Flash support))
Examples
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Search
○ /BasketballGame - All basketball games
○ /Coupon?&$select=title - All coupons, but limit results to titles
○ /Coupon?$select=title,cap&$orderBy=cap&$asc=0&$limit=1 - get the "title" and "cap" of
the coupon with the highest "cap"
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Create/Edit via OAUTH 2.0
○ Create a resource on behalf of the user
○ Edit a resource:
■ Edit it on behalf of a user
■ Undo edit
User can allow one App to use another's data via Oauth 2.0

13. Citizen dashboard
Everything in a city is connected
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New York
Neighborhoods
Neighborhood View (Clinton)
Basketball Courts
Basketball Court (De Witt)
Basketball Games (De Witt)
Basketball Game
Activity Near Game
Imported / integrated
Commerce
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Business Categories
Sidewalk Cafes
Auctions
Nominations
Investments (admin)
Tournaments / Competitions
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Any data type
Neverending - periodic "snapshots" record
daily/weekly/monthly/yearly winners
Sponsorable
Rewards
Nabbing (Pinterest-style)
Citizens' vehicle of choice
Any public or private data can be connected to the platform to rapidly create
powerful apps.

14. Towards shared data space
government + community + biz + devs
Each App can be a community within its walls or work together to make the city
better. Which scenario is more modern?

15. Share the burden
Requires new approach
Government seeded
Reputation-based
Data Class-specific
Apps act as People (via OAUTH 2.0)
Additional security for Apps
Throttling for people and Apps
Veto right by data owners
Tracking
Subscriptions, Alerts
Work planning - microtasking
Via editable data - by people & apps

16. Digital Government Strategy
“I want us to ask ourselves every day, how are we
using technology to make a real difference in
people’s lives.” President Barack Obama - May 23 2012
Urbien is already committed to go beyond the
government strategy objectives.