concursos

On 21 February, the winners of the 6th edition of the Castilla y León Open Data Competition were presented with their prizes. This competition, organised by the Regional Ministry of the Presidency of the Regional Government of Castilla y León, recognises projects that provide ideas, studies, services, websites or mobile applications, using datasets from its Open Data Portal.

The event was attended, among others, by Jesús Julio Carnero García, Minister of the Presidency, and Rocío Lucas Navas, Minister of Education of the Junta de Castilla y León.

In his speech, the Minister Jesús Julio Carnero García emphasised that the Regional Government is going to launch the Data Government project, with which they intend to combine Transparency and Open Data, in order to improve the services offered to citizens.

In addition, the Data Government project has an approved allocation of almost 2.5 million euros from the Next Generation Funds, which includes two lines of work: both the design and implementation of the Data Government model, as well as the training for public employees.

This is an Open Government action which, as the Councillor himself added, "is closely related to transparency, as we intend to make Open Data freely available to everyone, without copyright restrictions, patents or other control or registration mechanisms".

Nine prize-winners in the 6th edition of the Castilla y León Open Data Competition

It is precisely in this context that initiatives such as the 6th edition of the Castilla y León Open Data Competition stand out. In its sixth edition, it has received a total of 26 proposals from León, Palencia, Salamanca, Zamora, Madrid and Barcelona.

In this way, the 12,000 euros distributed in the four categories defined in the rules have been distributed among nine of the above-mentioned proposals. This is how the awards were distributed by category:

Products and Services Category: aimed at recognising projects that provide studies, services, websites or applications for mobile devices and that are accessible to all citizens via the web through a URL.

• First prize: 'Oferta de Formación profesional de Castilla y León. An attractive and accessible alternative with no-cod tools'". Author: Laura Folgado Galache (Zamora). 2,500 euros.
• Second prize: 'Enjoycyl: collection and exploitation of assistance and evaluation of cultural activities'. Author: José María Tristán Martín (Palencia). 1,500 euros.
• Third prize: 'Aplicación del problema de la p-mediana a la Atención Primaria en Castilla y León'.  Authors: Carlos Montero and Ernesto Ramos (Salamanca) 500 euros.
• Student prize: 'Play4CyL'. Authors: Carlos Montero and Daniel Heras (Salamanca) 1,500 euros.

Ideas category: seeks to reward projects that describe an idea for developing studies, services, websites or applications for mobile devices.

• First prize: 'Elige tu Universidad (Castilla y León)'. Authors: Maite Ugalde Enríquez and Miguel Balbi Klosinski (Barcelona) 1,500 euros.
• Second prize: 'Bots to interact with open data - Conversational interfaces to facilitate access to public data (BODI)'. Authors: Marcos Gómez Vázquez and Jordi Cabot Sagrera (Barcelona) 500 euros

Data Journalism Category: awards journalistic pieces published or updated (in a relevant way) in any medium (written or audiovisual).

• First prize: '13-F elections in Castilla y León: there will be 186 fewer polling stations than in the 2019 regional elections'. Authors: Asociación Maldita contra la desinformación (Madrid) 1,500 euros.
• Second prize: 'More than 2,500 mayors received nothing from their city council in 2020 and another 1,000 have not reported their salary'. Authors: Asociación Maldita contra la desinformación (Madrid). 1,000 euros.

Didactic Resource Category: recognises the creation of new and innovative open didactic resources (published under Creative Commons licences) that support classroom teaching.

In short, and as the Regional Ministry of the Presidency itself points out, with this type of initiative and the Open Data Portal, two basic principles are fulfilled: firstly, that of transparency, by making available to society as a whole data generated by the Community Administration in the development of its functions, in open formats and with a free licence for its use; and secondly, that of collaboration, allowing the development of shared initiatives that contribute to social and economic improvements through joint work between citizens and public administrations.

Aragón Open Data is 10 years old and to celebrate it they have launched a datathon entitled "The future of data". The event will take place on 25 November.

What is the datathon about?

The aim of the meeting, organised together with Fractal Strategy, is for citizens to experiment and generate new ideas based on open data that add value to society.

Aragon open Data will propose six challenges. Participants will have to choose one of the challenges or propose another of their choice. Throughout the day they will have to work in teams to create a new service that responds to the selected challenge, using a series of outstanding open datasets available in Aragon Open Data.

At the end of the day, a winning solution will be chosen based on three criteria: the novelty of the proposal, idea or service, its impact on society and the quality of the presentation where the two previous points are defended. Each member of the winning team will receive a voucher worth 50 euros to be exchanged in commercial surfaces in Aragon.

Los retos disponibles son los siguientes:

The following challenges are available:

• Connect with nature. This challenge will include solutions that map resources and points of interest for learning, doing sport or rural tourism, working from less populated places, enjoying leisure time or sharing experiences while enjoying nature.
• More lively neighbourhoods. In this case, solutions are sought that focus on young people and families of the future, addressing issues related to accessible housing, public and sustainable transport, local commerce, etc.
• Employment opportunities. This challenge is aimed at generating proposals that help people to find new employment opportunities in Aragon, through ideas for new industrial products, business initiatives or the mapping of commercial activity, among others.
• University life. With the aim of helping students to make decisions, solutions aimed at planning efforts, making professional contacts, discovering new fields of study and research, etc., will be valued.
• Conocer Aragón. Este reto se enfoca en destacar la oferta de ocio, hostelería y alojamientos, el patrimonio, la agenda cultural o las propuestas de turismo de la región con el fin de darla a conocer a locales y visitantes.
• Getting to know Aragon. This challenge focuses on highlighting the region's leisure, hospitality and accommodation offer, heritage, cultural agenda and tourism proposals in order to make Aragon known to locals and visitors.
• Renewable energies. The last challenge focuses on solutions to advance the sustainable use of energy and the development of new sources of energy resources.

Who can participate?

The event is open to both students and professionals from various fields, including communication, documentation, engineering, design, humanities, social sciences and law.

Participants will work in multidisciplinary teams, which will be formed on the day of the competition. If a participant comes with his or her team already formed, he or she can indicate it in the registration email.

Where does it take place?

The event is face-to-face. It will be held at the headquarters of the Centro de Artesanía de Aragón // Centro Aragonés de Diseño Industrial (CADI), in the building of the Old Municipal Slaughterhouse of Zaragoza, entrance on Calle del Monasterio de Samos, 42 (Zaragoza), on 25 November 2022, from 10:00 to 19:00.

Attendees should bring their own computer.

Food and drink will be provided by the organisers.

How can I register?

Registration is free and will be open until 23 November 2022 at 14h. To do so, please send an email to opendata@aragon.es with your name, age, profession / field of study and the subject "Registration for The Future of Data". If you already know which challenge you want to focus on, it is recommended that you also include it in the email.

These types of competitions are an excellent opportunity to put your knowledge into practice, learn from those with more experience and make new contacts. For these reasons, an increasing number of companies are using hackathons as a mechanism to locate and attract talent.

More information about the datathon on the Aragon Open Data website.

On 20 October, the EU's open data competition came to an end after several months of competition. The final of this sixth edition of the EU Datathon was held in Brussels in the framework of the European Year of Youth and was streamed worldwide.

It is a competition that gives open data enthusiasts and application developers from around the world the opportunity to demonstrate the potential of open data, while their innovative ideas gain international visibility and compete for a portion of the total prize money of €200,000.

The finalist teams were pre-selected from a total of 156 initial submissions. They came from 38 different countries, the largest participation in the history of the competition, to compete in four different categories related to the challenges facing Europe today.

Before the final, the selected participants had the opportunity to present in video format each of the proposals they have been developing based on the open data from the European catalogues.

Here is a breakdown of the winning teams in each challenge, the content of the proposal and the amount of the prize.

Winners of the “European Green Deal” Challenge

The European Green Deal is the blueprint for a modern, sustainable and competitive European economy. Participants who took up the challenge had to develop applications or services aimed at creating a green Europe, capable of driving resource efficiency.

1st prize: CROZ RenEUwable (Croatia)

The application developed by this Croatian team, "renEUwable", combines the analysis of environmental, social and economic data to provide specific and personal recommendations on sustainable energy use.

• Prize: €25,000

2nd prize: MyBioEUBuddy (France, Montenegro)

This project was created to help farm workers and local governments find regions that grow organic produce and can serve as an example to build a more sustainable agricultural network.

• Prize: €15,000

3rd prize: Green Land Dashboard for Cities (Italy)

The bronze in this category went to an Italian project that aims to analyse and visualise the evolution of green spaces in order to help cities, regional governments and non-governmental organisations to make them more liveable and sustainable.

• Prize: €7,000

"Winners of the “Transparency in Public Procurement” Challenge

Transparency in public procurement helps to track how money is spent, combat fraud and analyse economic and market trends. Participants who chose this challenge had to explore the information available to develop an application to improve transparency.

1st prize: Free Software Foundation Europe e.V (Germany)

This team of developers aims to make the links between the private sector, public administrations, users and tenders accessible.

• Prize: €25,000

2nd prize: The AI-Team (Germany)

This is a project that proposes to visualise data from TED, the European public procurement journal, in a graphical database and combine them with ownership information and a list of sanctioned entities. This will allow public officials and competitors to trace the amounts and values of contracts awarded back to the owners of the companies.

• Prize: €15,000

3rd prize: EMMA (France)

This fraud prevention and early detection tool allows public institutions, journalists and civil society to automatically monitor how the relationship between companies and administration is established at the beginning of a public procurement process.

• Prize: €7,000

Winners of the “Public Procurement Opportunities for Young People” Challenge

Public procurement is often perceived as a complex field, where only specialists feel comfortable finding the information they need. Thus, the developers who participated in this challenge had to design, for example, apps aimed at helping young people find the information they need to apply for public procurement positions.

1st prize: Hermix (Belgium, Romania)

It is a tool that develops a strategic marketing methodology aimed at the B2G (business to government) sector so that it is possible to automate the creation and monitoring of strategies for this sector.

• Prize: €25,000

2nd prize: YouthPOP (France)

YouthPOP is a tool designed to democratise employment and public procurement opportunities to bring them closer to young workers and entrepreneurs. It does this by combining historical data with machine learning technology.

• Prize: €15,000

3rd prize: HasPopEU (Romania)

This proposal takes advantage of open EU public procurement data and machine learning techniques to improve the communication of the skills required to access this type of job vacancies. The application focuses on young people, immigrants and SMEs.

• Prize: €7,000

Winners of the “A Europe Fit for the Digital Age” Challenge

The EU aims for a digital transformation that works for people and businesses. Therefore, participants in this challenge developed applications and services aimed at improving data skills, connectivity or data dissemination, always based on the European Data Strategy.

1st prize:: Lobium/Gavagai (Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom)

This application, developed using natural language processing techniques, was created with the aim of facilitating the work of investigative journalists, promoting transparency and rapid access to certain information.

• Prize: €25,000

2nd prize: 100 Europeans (France)

It is an interactive app that uses open data to raise awareness of the great challenges of our time. In this way, and aware of how difficult it is to communicate the impact that these challenges have on society, '100 Europeans' changes the way of conveying the message and personalises the effects of climate change, pollution or overweight in a total of one hundred people. The aim of this project is to make society more aware of these challenges by telling them through the stories of people close to them.

• Prize: €15,000

3rd prize: UNIOR NLP (Italy)

Leveraging European natural language processing techniques and data collection, the Computational Linguistics and Automatic Natural Language Processing research group at the University of Naples L'Orientale has developed a personal assistant called Maggie that guides users to explore cultural content across Europe, answering their questions and offering personalised suggestions.

• Prize: €7,000

Finally, the Audience Award of this 2022 edition also went to CROZ RenEUwable, the same team that won the first prize in the challenge dedicated to fostering commitment to the European Green Pact.

As in previous editions, the EU Datathon is a competition organised by the Publications Office of the European Union in collaboration with the European Data Strategy. Thus, the recently closed 2022 edition has managed to activate the support of some twenty partners representing open data stakeholders inside and outside the European institutions.

The IV edition of the Aporta Challenge, whose motto has revolved around 'The value of data for health and well-being of citizens', has already announced its three winners. The competition, promoted by Red.es in collaboration with the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, launched in November 2021 with an ideas competition and continued earlier this summer with a selection of ten finalist proposals.

As in the three previous editions, the selected candidates had a three month period to transform their ideas into a prototype, which they presented in person at the final gala.

In a post-pandemic context, where health plays an increasingly important role, the theme of the competition sought to identify, recognise and reward ideas aimed at improving the efficiency of this sector with solutions based on the use of open data.

On 18 October, the ten finalists came to the Red.es headquarters to present their proposals to a jury made up of representatives from public administrations, organisations linked to the digital economy, universities and data communities. In just twelve minutes, they had to summarise the purpose of the proposed project or service, explain how the development process had been carried out, what data they had used, and dwell on aspects such as the economic viability or traceability of the project or service.

Ten innovative projects to improve the health sector

The ten proposals presented to the jury showed a high level of innovation, creativity, rigour and public vocation. They were also able to demonstrate that it is possible to improve the quality of life of citizens by creating initiatives that monitor air quality, build solutions to climate change or provide a quicker response to a sudden health problem, among other examples.

For all these reasons, it is not surprising that the jury had a difficult time choosing the three winners of this fourth edition. In the end, HelpVoice initiative won the first prize of €5,000, the Hospital Morbidity Survey won the €4,000 linked to second place and RIAN, the Intelligent Activity and Nutrition Recommender, closed the ranking with third place and €3,000 as an award.

First prize: HelpVoice!

• Team: Data Express, composed of Sandra García, Antonio Ríos and Alberto Berenguer.

HelpVoice! is a service that helps our elderly through voice recognition techniques based on automatic learning. Thus, in an emergency situation, the user only need to click on a device that can be an emergency button, a mobile phone or home automation tools and tell about their symptoms. The system will send a report with the transcript and predictions to the nearest hospital, speeding up the response of the healthcare workers.

In parallel, HelpVoice! will also recommend to the patient what to do while waiting for the emergency services. Regarding the use of data, the Data Express team has used open information such as the map of hospitals in Spain and uses speech and sentiment recognition data in text.

Second prize: The Hospital Morbidity Survey

• Team: Marc Coca Moreno

This is a web environment based on MERN, Python and Pentaho tools for the analysis and interactive visualisation of the Hospital Morbidity Survey microdata. The entire project has been developed with open source and free tools and both the code and the final product will be openly accessible.

To be precise, it offers 3 main analyses with the aim of improving health planning:

• Descriptive: hospital discharge counts and time series.
• KPIs: standardised rates and indicators for comparison and benchmarking of provinces and communities.
• Flows: count and analysis of discharges from a hospital region and patient origin.

All data can be filtered according to the variables of the dataset (age, sex, diagnoses, circumstance of admission and discharge, etc.).

In this case, in addition to the microdata from the INE Hospital Morbidity Survey, statistics from the Continuous Register (also from the INE), data from the ICD10 diagnosis catalogues of the Ministry of Health and from the catalogues and indicators of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and of the Autonomous Communities, such as Catalonia: catalogues and stratification tools, have also been integrated.

You can see the result of this work here.

Third prize: RIAN - Intelligent Activity and Nutrition Recommender

• Team: RIAN Open Data Team, composed of Jesús Noguera y Raúl Micharet..

This project was created to promote healthy habits and combat overweight, obesity, sedentary lifestyles and poor nutrition among children and adolescents. It is an application designed for mobile devices that uses gamification techniques, as well as augmented reality and artificial intelligence algorithms to make recommendations.

Users have to solve personalised challenges, individually or collectively, linked to nutritional aspects and physical activities, such as gymkhanas or games in public green spaces.

In relation to the use of open data, the pilot uses data related to green areas, points of interest, greenways, activities and events belonging to the cities of Malaga, Madrid, Zaragoza and Barcelona. In addition, these data are combined with nutritional recommendations (food data and nutritional values and branded food products) and data for food recognition by images from Tensorflow or Kaggle, among others.

Alberto Martínez Lacambra, Director General of Red.es presents the awards and announces a new edition

The three winners were announced by Alberto Martínez Lacambra, Director General of Red.es, at a ceremony held at Red.es headquarters on 27 October. The event was attended by several members of the jury, who were able to talk to the three winning teams.

Martínez Lacambra also announced that Red.es is already working to shape the V Aporta Challenge, which will focus on the value of data for the improvement of the common good, justice, equality and equity.

Once again this year, the Aporta Initiative would like to congratulate the three winners, as well as to thank the work and talent of all the participants who decided to invest their time and knowledge in thinking and developing proposals for the fourth edition of the Aporta Challenge.

60 participants, 10 mentors and €2,000 in prizes. These are the figures managed by DiValHack, the Hackathon promoted by Red.es and the Diputación de Valencia to bring the project "Connecta Valencia: Smart and Sustainable Tourism Territory" to the citizens. This project, financed by the public entity Red.es with FEDER funds, seeks to improve the tourism competitiveness of Valencian municipalities, increasing their knowledge to offer a better and more sustainable experience to tourists.

What is DiValHack?

DiValHack participants must develop a technological solution that responds to a challenge using the resources and infrastructures that Connecta Valencia offers.

Participants can propose a challenge of their choice related to Connecta Valencia or try to respond to some of the organisation's proposals:

• Mobility challenges: for example, determining the actual congestion of different points of interest, helping to locate parking spaces or helping tourists to travel with a lower carbon footprint.
• Environmental challenges: such as monitoring the air situation or comparing environmental quality between municipalities.
• Tourism challenges: e.g. showcasing thematic routes or promoting nomadism and rural tourism.

Solutions that address several challenges, as well as combining different data sources, from Connecta Valencia and other external repositories, will be considered positively. For example, solutions that monitor noise in contrast to the influx of people or that recommend routes based on the weather or air quality.

When does it take place?

The hackathon will be held on 10 and 17 November 2022, starting at 12:30. Both sessions will be face-to-face.

In the first session, resources will be presented and teams and roadmaps will be defined.

During the week the teams will work on their projects, supported by online mentoring.

On the 17th, the teams will present their solutions, which will be evaluated by a jury, and prizes will be awarded to the three solutions with the best scores. The evaluation criteria are defined in the terms and conditions of the call.

Who can participate?

The hackathon is aimed at students and professionals. The only requirement is to be of legal age.

Participation will take place in teams of three to six people. The team should be multidisciplinary, including technological, financial, business, communication and/or social science profiles, as the evaluation criteria are not only technical.

What do the prizes consist of?

The three proposals with the best scores will receive cash prizes of 2,000 euros, distributed as follows:

• First prize: 1,000 euros
• Second prize: 750 euros
• Third prize: 250 euros

How can I participate?

Participation is free of charge. The deadline for registration is 30 October. To register you must fill in this form.

You can register alone or in a group. If you register alone, the organisation will find a group for you at the event.

Find out more about Connecta Valencia

The Connecta Valencia project has provided the 266 Valencian municipalities with the necessary infrastructure to analyse the flow of tourists in their territory, as well as their impact on the environment, by installing devices that measure mobility and environmental quality. This information allows informed decisions to be taken and public policies to be improved.

To this end, an open source platform has been set up to facilitate access to data through two mechanisms: an API and an open data portal that offers datasets in CSV and JSON formats. Among other information, users can access to data from meteorological and environmental sensors, mobility flows, etc.

You can learn more about the project in the following videos:

Do you accept the challenge of transforming Bizkaia from its open data? This is the "Datathon Open Data Bizkaia", a collaborative development competition organised by Lantik and the Provincial Council of Bizkaia.

Participants will have to create the mockup of an application that helps to solve problems affecting the citizens of Bizkaia. To do so, they will have to use at least one dataset from among all those available on the Open Data Bizkaia portal. These datasets may be combined with data from other sources.

How does the competition unfold?

The competition will be held in two phases:

• First phase. Participating teams must submit a proposal document in PDF format. Among other information, the proposal shall include a brief description of the solution, its functionalities and the datasets used.

• Second phase. A jury will evaluate all applications received and that are valid in time and form. Seven finalist proposals will then be selected. The shortlisted teams will have to produce a mockup and a promotional video of maximum 2 minutes, presenting the team members and describing the most outstanding features of the solution.

These phases will be carried out according to the following timetable:

• From 19 September to 19 October. Registration period open to submit proposals in pdf format.
• 26 October. Announcement of shortlisted teams.
• 14th November. Deadline for submitting the mockup and video.
• 18th November. The final will be held in Bilbao, although it will also be possible to attend, optionally, online. The videos will be presented and the winning teams will be selected.

Who can participate?

The competition is open to anyone over 16 years of age, regardless of nationality, as long as they have a valid DNI/NIF/NIE, passport or other public document that proves the identity and age of the participant.

You can participate as an individual or in teams of a maximum of six people.

What do the prizes consist of?

Two winners will be chosen from the 7 finalists, who will receive the following prize money:

• First prize: €2,500.
• Second prize: €1,500.

In addition, the other finalist teams will receive €500.

Para llevar a cabo la valoración, el jurado tomará como referencia una serie de criterios detallados en las bases de la competición: relevancia, reutilización de datos abiertos y aptitud para el propósito.

In order to carry out the assessment, the jury will take as a reference a series of criteria detailed in the competition rules: relevance, reuse of open data and fitness for purpose.

How can I participate?

Participants must upload their proposal to a sharepoint enabled for this purpose. A model document that can be used as a reference can be found on the website.

Beforehand, it is necessary to register using the form on the website. After registration, the team will receive an e-mail with instructions on how to submit the proposal.

The proposal must be submitted before 19 October 2022 at 12h.

Find out more about Open Data Bizkaia

Open Data Bizkaia provides citizens and reusing agents with access to the public information managed by the Provincial Council of Bizkaia. There are currently more than 900 datasets available.

Its website also offers resources for reusers, an API, good practices and examples of applications created with datasets from the portal that can serve to inspire the participants in this competition.

Find out more about Bizkaia's Open Data strategy in this article.

There are only a few days left until the end of summer and, as with every change of season, it is time to review what the last three months have brought in the Spanish open data ecosystem.

In July we learned of the latest edition of the European Commission's DESI (Digital Economy and Society Index) report, which places Spain ahead of the EU average in digital matters. Our country is in seventh position, improving two places compared to 2021. One of the areas where it performs best is in open data, where it ranks third. These good data are the result of the fact that an increasing number of organisations are committed to opening up the information they hold and more reusers are taking advantage of this data to create valuable products and services, as we will see below.

Advances in strategy and agreements to promote open data

Open data is gaining ground in political strategies at national, regional and local level.

In this regard, in July the Council of Ministers approved the draft Act on the Digital Efficiency of the Public Justice Service, an initiative that seeks to build a more accessible Justice Administration, promoting the data orientation of its systems. Among other issues, this act incorporates the concept of "open data" in the Administration of Justice.

Another example, this time at the regional level, comes from the Generalitat de Valencia, which launched a new Open Data Strategy at the beginning of the summer with the aim of offering quality public information, by design and by default.

We have also witnessed the signing  of collaboration agreements to boost the open data ecosystem, for example:

• The Ajuntament de L'Hospitalet and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya have signed an agreement to offer training to undergraduate and master's degree students in Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, based on open data work.
• The University of Castilla la Mancha has agreed with the regional government to launch the 'Open Government' chair in order to promote higher education and research in areas such as transparency, open data or access to public information.
• The National Centre for Geographic Information (CNIG) and Asedie have signed a new protocol to improve access to geographic information, in order to promote openness, access and reuse of public sector information.

Examples of data reuse

The summer of 2022 will be remembered for the heat waves and fires that have ravaged different corners of the country. A context in which open data has demonstrated its power to provide information on the state of the situation and help in extinguishing fires. Data from Copernicus or the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) have been used to monitor the situation and make decisions. These data sources, together with others, are also being used to understand the consequences of low rainfall and high temperatures on European reservoirs. In addition, these data have been used by the media to provide the public with the latest information on the evolution of the fires.

Firefighting based on open data has also been developed at the regional level. For example, the Government of Navarre has launched Agronic, a tool that works with Spatial Data Infrastructures of Navarre to prevent fires caused by harvesters.  For its part, the Barcelona Provincial Council's open data portal has published datasets with "essential information" for the prevention of forest fires. These include the network of water points, low combustibility strips and forest management actions, used by public bodies to draw up plans to deal with fire.

Other examples of the use of open data that we have seen during this period are:

• The Environmental Radiological Surveillance Network of the Generalitat de Catalunya has developed, from open data, a system to monitor the radiation present in the environment of the nuclear power plants (Vandellòs and Ascó) and the rest of the Catalan territory.
• Thanks to the open data shared by Aragón Open Data, a new scientific article on Covid-19 has been written with the aim of finding out and identifying spatio-temporal patterns in relation to the incidence of the virus and the organisation of health resources.
• The Barcelona Open Data initiative has launched #DataBretxaWomen, a project that seeks to raise public awareness of the existing inequality between men and women in different sectors.
• Maldito dato has used open data from the statistics developed by the National Statistics Institute (INE) based on mobile positioning data to show how the population density of different Spanish municipalities changes during July and August.
• Within its Data Analytics for Research and Innovation in Health Programme, Catalonia has prioritised 8 proposals for research based on data analysis. These include studies on migraines, psychosis and heart disease.

Developments in open data platforms

Summer has also been the time chosen by different organisations to launch or update their open data platforms. Examples include:

• The Statistical Institute of Navarre launched a new web portal, with more dynamic and attractive visualisations. In the process of creation, they have managed to automate statistical production and integrate all the data in a single environment.
• Zaragoza City Council has also just published a new open data portal that offers all municipal information in a clearer and more concise way. This new portal has been agreed with other city councils as part of the 'Open Cities' project.
• Another city that already has an open data portal is Cadiz. Its City Council has launched a platform that will allow the people of Cadiz to know, access, reuse and redistribute the open data present in the city.
• The Valencian Institute of Business Competitiveness (IVACE) presented an open data portal with all the records of energy certification of buildings in the Valencian Community since 2011. This will allow, among other actions, to carry out consumption analysis and establish rehabilitation strategies.
• Aragón Open Data has included a new functionality in its API that allows users to obtain geographic data in GeoJSON format.
• The National Geographic Institute announced a new version of the earthquake app, with new features, educational content and information.
• The Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge presented SIDAMUN, a platform that facilitates access to territorial statistical information based on municipal data.
• The open data portal of the Government of the Canary Islands launched a new search engine that makes it possible to locate the pages of the portal using metadata, and which allows exporting in CVS, ODS or PDF.

Some organisations have taken advantage of the summer to announce new developments that will see the light of day in the coming months, such as the Xunta de Galicia, which is making progress in the development of a Public Health Observatory through an open data platform, Burgos City Council, which will launch an open data portal, and the Pontevedra Provincial Council, which will soon launch a real-time budget viewer.

Actions to promote open data

In June we met the finalists of the IV Aporta Challenge: "The value of data for the health and well-being of citizens", the final of which will be held in October. In addition, some competitions have been launched in recent months to promote the reuse of open data, for which the registration period is still open, such as the Castilla y León competition or the first UniversiData Datathon. The Euskadi open data competition was also launched and is currently in the evaluation phase.

With regard to events, the summer started with the celebration of the Open Government Week, which brought together various activities, some of them focused on data. If you missed it, some organisations have made materials available to citizens. For example, you can watch the video of the colloquium "Open data with a gender perspective: yes or yes" promoted by the Government of the Canary Islands or access the webinar presentations to learn about the Data Office and the Aporta Initiative.

Other events that have been held with the participation of the Data Office and whose videos are public are: the National Congress on Archives and Electronic Documents and the Data Spaces as ecosystems for entities to reach further.

Finally, in the field of training, some examples of courses that have been launched these months are:

• The National Geographic Institute has launched an Inter-administrative Training Plan, with the aim of generating a common culture among all the experts in Geographic Information of the public bodies.
• Andalucía Vuela has launched a series of free training courses aimed at citizens interested in data or artificial intelligence.

International News

The summer has also brought many new developments at the international level. Some examples are:

• The beginning of the meteorological summer saw the publication of the results of the first edition of the Global Data Barometer, which measures the state of data with respect to societal issues such as Covid19 or climate.
• The 12 finalists of the Eu Datathon 2022 were also announced.
• An interactive edition of Eurostat's regional yearbook 2021 was published.
• England has developed a strategy to harness the potential of data in health and healthcare in a secure, reliable and transparent way.

This is just a selection of news among all the developments in the open data ecosystem over the last three months. If you would like to make a contribution, feel free to leave us a message in the comments or write to dinamizacion@datos.gob.es.

For yet another year since 2016, the Junta de Castilla y León has opened the deadline to receive the most innovative proposals in the field of open data. The sixth edition of the competition of the same name aims to "recognise the development of projects that provide any type of idea, study, service, website or application for mobile devices, using datasets from the Open Data Portal of the Junta de Castilla y León".

With this type of initiative, Castilla y León seeks to showcase the digital talent present in the autonomous community, while promoting the use of open data and the role of reusing companies in Castilla y León.

The deadline for submitting applications has been open since 5 August and will end on 4 October. When submitting projects, participants will be able to choose between the in-person or digital option. The latter will be carried out through the Electronic Headquarters of Castilla y León and can be processed by both individuals and legal entities.

4 different categories

As in previous editions, the projects and associated prizes are divided into four different categories:

• “Ideas" category: This category includes projects that describe an idea that can be used to create studies, services, websites or applications for mobile devices. The main requirement is to use datasets from the Junta de Castilla y León's Open Data portal.
• "Products and Services" category: Includes those that provide studies, services, websites or applications for mobile devices and that use datasets from the Open Data portal of the Junta de Castilla y León, which are accessible to all citizens via the web using an URL.
• “Didactic Resource" category: This section includes the creation of new and innovative open didactic resources (published under Creative Commons licences) that use datasets from the Junta de Castilla y León's Open Data portal, and serve to support teaching in the classroom.
•  “Data Journalism" category: Finally, this category includes journalistic pieces published or updated (in a relevant way) in any medium (written or audiovisual) that use datasets from the Junta de Castilla y León's Open Data portal.

Regarding the awards of this sixth edition, the prizes amount to €12,000 and are distributed according to the category awarded and the position achieved.

 Ideas category

• First prize €1,500
• Second prize €500

Products and Services category

• First prize €2,500
• Second prize €1,500
• Third prize €500
• Student Prize €1,500

 Didactic Resource category

• First prize €1,500

Data Journalism category

• First prize €1,500
• Second prize €1,000

As in previous editions, the final verdict will be issued by a jury made up of members with proven experience in the field of open data, information analysis or the digital economy. Likewise, the jury's decisions will be taken by majority vote and, in the event of a tie, the jury will decide who holds the presidency.

Finally, the winners will have a period of 5 working days to accept the award. If they do not accept the prize, it will be understood that they have renounced it. If you want to consult the conditions and legal bases of the competition in detail, you can access them through this link.  

Winners of the 2021 edition

The 5th edition of the Castilla y León Data Competition had a total of 37 proposals of which only eight of them won some kind of award. With a view to participating in the current edition, it may be of interest to know which projects won the jury's attention in 2021.

Ideas Category

The first prize of €1,500 went to APP SOLAR-CYL, a web tool for optimal sizing of photovoltaic solar self-consumption installations. Aimed at both citizens and public administration energy managers, the solution aims to support the analysis of the technical and economic viability of this type of system.

Products and Services Category

Repuéblame is a website aimed at rediscovering the best places in which to live or telework. In this way, the app catalogues the municipalities of Castilla y León based on a series of numerical indicators, developed in-house, related to quality of life. By winning the first prize in this category, it received a cash prize of 2,500 euros.

Data Journalism Category

Asociación Maldita contra la desinformación won the first prize of €1,500 for its project MAPA COVID-19: see how many cases of coronavirus there are and how busy your hospital is.

Finally, after the jury decided that the entries submitted did not meet the criteria set out in the rules, the "Educational Resource" category was declared void and, therefore, none of the participants were awarded a prize.

If you have any questions or queries about the competition, you can write an email to: datosabiertos@jcyl.es.

UniversiDATA organizes its first Datathon.

Are you interested in data analysis? If the answer is yes, you will be interested to know that UniversiDATA has launched a datathon to recognize open data processing projects based on the datasets available on its portal. 
This initiative seeks not only to reward talent, but also to promote the content offered and encourage its use, inspiring new projects through the dissemination of reference cases. It is also an opportunity to get to know their reusers and better understand their objectives, challenges and needs. This valuable information will be used to drive improvements to the platform.

Who can participate?

The call is open to any natural person of legal age with tax residence in the European Union. Students, developers, researchers or any citizen interested in data analysis can participate.

How does the competition take place?

The competition is structured in two phases:

Elimination phase 

A jury of experts will evaluate all the applications received on the basis of the project descriptions provided by the participants in the registration form. Four criteria detailed in the competition rules will be taken into account: impact, quality of the proposal, usability/presentation and reusability.
After the evaluation, a maximum of 10 finalists will pass to the next phase.

Final phase

The finalists will have to present their projects via videoconference to the members of the jury. 
After the presentation, the three winners will be announced.

What are the requirements for the projects submitted?

The submitted projects must fulfill three obligations:

• At least one dataset published on the open data portal UniversiDATA must be used. These datasets may be combined with secondary data from other sources.
• The use made of the UniversiDATA datasets must be essential to obtain the results of the analysis.
• The analysis of the data must have a clear purpose or utility. Generic data treatments will not be accepted. 

It should be noted that existing work, previously presented in other contexts, may be submitted. Furthermore, there are no limitations regarding the technology to be used for the analysis -each user may use the tools he/she considers appropriate- or regarding the format of the final result of the analysis. That is to say, you can compete with a mobile App, a web application, a data analysis in Jupyter or R-Markdown, etc...

What are the prizes?

The three winners will receive a total of €3,500, distributed as follows:

• First prize: €2,000 
• Second prize: 1,000 €. 
• Third prize: 500 €.

The other finalists will receive a diploma of recognition.

How can I participate?

The registration period is now open. The easiest way to participate is to fill out the form available at the end of the competition website before October 14, 2022.
Before registering, we recommend that you review all the complete information in the competition rules. If you have any questions, you can contact the organizers. Various channels will soon be available for participants to ask questions regarding not only the competition procedures, but also the platform's datasets.

Competition schedule

• Receipt of applications: until October 14, 2022
• Publication of the 10 finalists: November 14, 2022
• Communication of the three winners: December 16, 2022

Find out more about UniversiDATA

UniversiDATA was born at the end of 2020 with the aim of promoting open data in the higher education sector in Spain in a harmonized way. It is a public-private initiative that currently encompasses Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Universidad de Valladolid, Universidad de Huelva and "Dimetrical, The Analytics Lab", S.L.
In 2021 UniversiDATA won the First Prize of the III Desafío Aporta for its project UniversiDATA-Lab, a public portal for the advanced and automatic analysis of datasets published by universities. You can learn more about the project in this interview.

7 February 2022 was the date chosen for the launch of the sixth edition of the EU Datathon. Organised by the Publications Office of the European Union, this competition aims to raise awareness of the value of open data and showcase the opportunities for data-driven business models.

EU Datathon 2022 gives participants the opportunity to gain international visibility for their innovative ideas based on open data, as well as compete for a total prize fund of €200,000.

4 challenges available

Unlike the 2021 edition, which presented 3 challenges, this EU Datathon 2022 has 4 challenges to solve:

• Challenge 1: 'The European Green Deal'. The European Green Deal is the blueprint for a modern, sustainable and competitive European economy. Participants in this challenge must develop applications or services aimed at creating a greener Europe, for example to boost resource efficiency or reduce pollution.
• Challenge 2: 'Transparency in public procurement'. Transparency in public procurement helps to track how public money is spent, to fight fraud and to analyse economic and market trends. Therefore, this challenge invites developers to explore the wealth of information available and develop an application to expose it in a transparent way.
• Challenge 3: 'EU public procurement opportunities for young people'. Public procurement is often perceived as a complex field, where only specialists feel comfortable finding the information they need. This challenge invites developers to propose, for example, apps that help young people to easily find the information they need when applying for public procurement positions.
• Challenge 4: 'A Europe fit for the digital age'. The EU aims for a digital transformation that works for people and businesses. This challenge therefore drives the creation of applications or services that improve data literacy, increase connectivity or make data more understandable for all, based on the European Data Strategy.

How to participate?

Participants must submit an idea for an application that links and uses open datasets to address one of the four challenges above. Importantly, at least one of the datasets used to develop the idea must come from the datasets available on data.europa.eu.

In addition, participants opting for challenges 2 or 3 must use at least one dataset published by the EU Tender Electronic Daily (TED).

Who can participate?

The EU Datathon 2022 is aimed at citizens from all over the world interested in prototyping products based on public open data and even developing new business models, for-profit or not-for-profit, through the exploration of such data.

Participation is open to individuals or legal entities, in teams of one to four members. However, staff working in the institutions, agencies and bodies associated with or contracted by the EU Publications Office are not eligible to apply.

How does the competition unfold?

Participating teams must register their proposal via this form by 31 March 2022 at 23:59 CET (Central European Time). After the registration deadline, the competition will run in 2 phases:

1.Pre-selection

The jury, composed of experts from within and outside the EU institutions and agencies, will evaluate the registered proposals on the basis of a number of criteria such as the relevance of the selected challenge or the potential and creativity of the proposed solution.

For each challenge, the 6 highest scoring teams will be shortlisted. All participating teams will be notified of the results on 25 April 2022.

2.Fase final

The 24 shortlisted teams (6 per challenge) will be invited to turn their proposals into applications. Each team will have to produce and email a 60-second video presenting their app and the team working on it by 15 August 2022.

The final of the competition will take place on 20 October. The applications submitted in each challenge will be evaluated by a jury of experts. In addition to the relevance of the proposal, the open data used (economic and social potential, interoperability with other data sources, etc.) and fit for purpose (maturity of the product, benefits offered, etc.) will be taken into account.

What is the prize money?

This year, the total prize money increases considerably to 200,000 euros, which will be divided for each challenge as follows:

• First place: 25,000 euros
• Second place: EUR 15,000
• Third place: 7,000 euros

From datos.gob.es we invite you to submit your proposal. Remember that if you need inspiration, you can take as a reference CleanSpot, the Spanish company that managed to be a finalist in the EU Datathon 2021, winning second place in its challenge.

You also have at your disposal the information about the winning projects of all the editions of the Aporta Challenge, which, like the EU Datathon, seeks to reward ideas and prototypes based on open data that drive improvements in specific sectors of activity. The first year the focus was on the public sector, the second on the agri-food, forestry and rural sectors, and the third on education. The call for participants for the fourth edition, focusing on the field of health and well-being, has just closed.

Good luck to all participants!