Interview to the of the Plataforma PLAN creator, second prize of Desafío aporta 2017

Plataforma PLAN, which won the second prize of Desafío Aporta 2017, is a platform that facilitates public procurement. It provides market information to contracting entities, facilitating the design of open procedures, and allows operators to configure a highly personalized alarm system. The platform include the possibility of generating catalogs of available products and offers to contracting entities destined to the realization of minor contracts and negotiated procedures without publicity.

We have spoken with Alfonso Sánchez García, creator of this initiative, to tell us how they are carrying out this project.

Currently, at what point of Pltaforma PLAN development are you?

The project continues taking steps to get its main raw material: open format data related to invoices from all municipalities in the Region of Murcia. For the moment, thanks to Governalia collaboration, we achieve the goal of unifying all the open data related to the municipalities’ budgets, through the portal http://presupuestosmunicipales.carm.es/. The next step would be to be able to break down this information through each and every invoices.

In which information sources, public or private, is your project based on?

Public information with open formats generated by the municipalities and coordinated by the Transparency and Citizen Participation Office of Region of Murcia.

Do you think that initiatives such as Desafío Aporta 2017 can help companies and entrepreneurs launch their open data reuse projects? What other initiatives of this kind do you think should be put into practice?

Of course. Beyond the recognitions, Desafío Aporta acts as a forum that brings together all the operators interested in the sector. As a consequence, participants can share ideas and generate collaborations and synergies mechanism.

Additionally, this contest and Aporta Meeting, due to their focus on the practical reality of specific projects, can serve as an effective manner to share the sector concerns and difficulties to try to resolve it. In this sense, perhaps the implementation of an advisory and consulting service for projects and initiatives that are in an initial phase could be very useful to help finish the projects.

As a user of open data, what challenges have you found when reusing public information? How have you solved those challenges?

The main obstacle to launch our idea was the existence of transparency portals that did not use open data, the lack of the necessary detail and its fragmentation into multiple and diverse platforms. An exceptional example –taking into account the two meanings determined by the RAE- was the Pobla de Vallbona portal (Valencia).

The solution is possible thanks to the initiative described above (question 1) launched by the Transparency and Citizen Participation Office of Region of Murcia.

What actions do you consider that Spain should prioritize in terms of data provision?

Materializing the interconnection, interoperability and the use of open formats, so that the user is not condemned to use a multitude of format; and improving data access and  systematization, including the possibility of comparing data from a single portal.

Finally, what are your future plans? Are you immersed or have any other open data reuse project in mind?

We remain focused on perfecting the Plataforma PLAN idea. Although, we know that the Transparency and Citizen Participation Office of Region of Murcia -who has support to this project making it possible-, is developing a map of geolocated public services that allows citizens of the Region to consult in an interactive plan the location of administrative bodies offices, education centers, health centers, etc., as well as a App for farmers, with the collaboration of Instituto Murciano de Investigación y Desarrollo Agrario y Alimentario —IMIDA—, that use meteorological open data to provide a series of technical advice on fumigation, irrigation and other tasks for a given area and time.