A beginner's introduction to open data - what, why, how, and what else...

1. OPEN DATA
IN
GOVERNME
NT
Steps forward and back
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2. THE TREND TOWARDS ‘OPEN’
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3. OPEN DATA
What is open data
Technically open
Legally open
Free for commercial reuse
Example datasets
National statistics
Government budget
Election results
National map
Company register
Transport timetables
Government spending
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4. WHY OPEN DATA
Transparency
Accountability
Inclusion
Engagement
Service delivery
Economic growth and jobs
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5. GOVERNMENT ADOPTION OF OPEN
DATA
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>50 countries > 250 governments

6. DIFFERING LEVELS OF PROGRESS
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7. EXAMPLES OF OPEN DATA
PROGRAMS
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8. STORIES FROM THE FIELD
Nigeria – BudgiT simplifies government budgets for ordinary citizens and provides tools to visualize
and share data
India – IndiaSpend is a data journalism initiative that uses open data and more to foster better
governance, transparency, and accountability in the Indian government
Jamaica – CrimeBot alerts citizens to crimes in their neighborhood and provides different kinds of
analysis of crime data
UK – FixMyStreet lets citizens report local problems directly to relevant government agencies
Macedonia – a UNDP initiative combined SMS, open data, and other data sources to create a service
that helped farmers reduce pesticide use by 30%
Malawi – Malwivote helps voters find their registration centers
Kenya – an NTV journalist produced a series of stories linking grades with sanitation facilities
Philippines – CheckMySchool provides information on services and facilities in schools
USA – BuildingEye provides ‘mashed-up’ information to government agencies and citizens about
building permits, planning applications, business licenses, public events, etc.
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9. STORIES FROM THE BOARD ROOM
USA – Climate Corporation sells highly localized crop insurance
products (the company was recently sold for almost a billion dollars)
Mexico – Medii.co helps consumers compare drug prices in different
pharmacies in Mexico
India – MandiTrades provides commodity price information to
farmers/agribusiness
Indonesia – UrbanIndo connects property buyers and sellers
Chile – Junar is a cloud based open data publishing platform
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10. USE AND REUSE
It is not about the data, it is about the use of data
The government has a critical role to play in the open data
‘ecosystem’
 Supplier
 Leader
 Catalyst
 User
The government however can’t do it alone. Essential partners include
-
 Private sector
 Civil society organizations
 Media
 Academia
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11. CHALLENGES
Data
 Most open data programs are superficial; too much data – especially local, granular, current – is still unavailable
Policy
 Significant policy gaps discourage both the publication and use (especially commercial) of data
Capacity/Literacy
 Few government policy makers are trained to understand the potential of data in governance
 Limited understanding of open data within critical communities like entrepreneurs, investors, journalists, CSOs, and development practitioners
Innovation
 Limited support/infrastructure for innovation and incubation of new data driven ideas and companies
Financing
 Many government open data programs face significant financing challenges
 Access to capital, especially post-seed stage capital, is a significant challenge for open data driven companies
Result measurement
 The current focus is on supply, rather than demand
 Measurements are focused on inputs, rather than outputs
Data puritanism
 Open data purists are unable to see the larger data landscape
 Most open data initiatives focus only on data, ignoring ‘ecosystem’ challenges associated with policy, engagement, capacity, use, financing, and the like
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12. TOOLKITS/RESOURCES
The World Bank provides an open government data toolkit that may
be helpful for government officials considering open data programs
The Open Foundation has created a handy guide to the technical,
legal, and social aspects of open data
The European Journalism Center has produced a useful data
journalism guide
The US government published its open data policy recently
The G8 recently announced an open data charter
The UK government recently published a white paper describing the
potential of open data
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13. FINALLY
Governments need to make significant investment in building a data
literate society
 Technical skills are important but there’s a greater need for people that can ask
data smart questions – what are we trying to solve, what can we instrument, what
can we ask from the data, what can we share, what is it telling us
 The modern policy maker MUST be data savvy
The media is a natural producer, disseminator, aggregator, combiner,
and consumer of data
 Will it (or will the ‘new media’ do it instead)
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14. THANK YOU
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15. REFERENCES
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http://barometer.opendataresearch.org/assets/downloads/Open%20Data%20Baromete
r%20-%20Global%20Report%20-%202nd%20Edition%20-%20PRINT.pdf
http://index.okfn.org/place/

16. THE TREND TOWARDS ‘OPEN’ –THE
FLAVORS
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