Evento
A new edition of the Aporta Challenge is already underway. As the previous edition, new ideas and prototypes based on open data are sought to help improve the efficiency of a specific sector. In this case, the agri-food, forestry and rural sector have been chosen, due to its fundamental role in the creation of wealth and employment.
Why is the agri-food, forestry and rural sector important?
Currently, this sector is facing a series of challenges that affect all us and, ultimately, the future of humanity, such as climate change, food security, population growth or depopulation in rural areas. Generating a higher amount of food to support the whole population, in a safe way and respectful with the environment, looking for alternatives to the concentration of population into urban areas, driving the development of rural environment, as well as protecting and preserving the forests for future generations, are demanding and urgent tasks.
To these global problems, we must add the specific challenges of Spain. Depopulation, aging, desertification, digital divide, masculinization, deficit and dispersion of services ... are some of the concepts that usually come to mind when we think about the rural environment in our country.
A paradigm shift is necessary to face these challenges.
How can open data help to improve this situation?
The digital transformation can help to change the bases of agri-food operations, promoting the rural environment, in many different ways; for example, through the smart agriculture that combines technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence with public and private data management, to maximize crop yields, increase productivity and improve their sustainability. In this context, open data has a fundamental role.
What is Aporta Challenge 2019?
Aporta Challenge seeks to promote talent, technical competence and creativity in the reuse of open data, with the aim of devising solutions that help promote improvements in the agri-food, forestry and rural sector.
The ideas and prototypes presented must use at least one source of open data generated by Public Administrations, whether national or international, and published under an open license. These data sets may be combined with others from various sources, both public or private, and national or international.
The contest will be developed in 2 phases:
- Phase I: Ideas competition. Participants must provide a detailed description of an original idea that can be used to create or enrich a service, study, web or mobile application, which leads to improvements for the agri-food, forestry and rural sector. All the ideas will be evaluated according to criteria such as: their innovative character, their economic and social impact, and their contribution to improving the life quality of young people and women, two fundamental groups for the sector survival. After the evaluation process, the 10 best ideas will be selected and their authors will go to Phase II.
- Phase II: Prototype development and face-to-face exposition. During Phase II, the authors of the 10 selected ideas will elaborate a prototype that may consist of simulations, visualizations, videos or multimedia solutions. The 3 best prototypes will be selected according to criteria such as ease-of-use or technical quality.
During the following months, dissemination and follow-up will be carried out.
Who can participate?
The Aporta Challenge is aimed at individuals and legal entities of the European Union.
Those interested in participating must register in this form.
What are the prizes?
The three best prototypes presented will opt for three monetary prizes according to the following amounts:
- First prize: € 4,000
- Second prize: € 3,000
- Third prize: € 2,000
More information in the Challenge Aporta section and the Competitions Rules.
Noticia
Ten teams, five months of hard work, a large dose of enthusiasm and ten final prototypes where open data, technology, public administrations, re-use and innovation have gone hand in hand. At the end of October at the headquarters of red.esthe presentation before the jury for the ten final prototypes and ideas by the Aporta Challenge 2017 initiative: “The value of data in government” will take place. An initiative launched last May from the Aporta Initiative (datos.gob.es) with the aim of promoting creative solutions and ideas to improve the efficiency of government by using open data. In the first round of the “challenge” a total of 45 ideas were received from working groups in academic and business sectors, as well as individuals. The jury assessed the ideas presented, taking into account their relevance, quality and usefulness, and ten of them passed through to the second round.
Here are the ten final ideas, their creators and the three prototypes that won (with the following rewards: 1st prize €3,000, 2nd prize €2,000 and 3rd prize €1,000) and whose result was announced on Tuesday October 24 at the Aporta Meeting 2017.
THE WINNERS
First Prize ► Liight App
An app that makes a game of sustainability in order to incentivise people to be more sustainable in their day to day. Through smart city systems and gaming mechanisms, the use of public transport, bicycle or recycling was rewarded. The compensation are Liights, a virtual currency that users can redeem by obtaining different discounts and direct rewards on products and services. The app verifies the actions through its own algorithms and cross data collected, through sensors on the smartphone and crossing them with public and private data bases, as well as IoT devices (RecyclIoT)./p>
Second Prize ► Plataforma PLAN
A platform that gives value to open data in the field of public procurement in a completely new way, helping to plan tasks for contracting authorities, especially small or medium sized authorities. Through the platform, public administration has quick and user-friendly information on the market, better positioning it when designing their open procedures. Operators have a customised notification system, increasing their possibilities of being considered as providers of goods, services or works.
Third Prize ► qMe-Aporta: Guiado NL en consultas de datos.gob.es
A prototype for the intuitive construction of queries, in controlled natural language, on the knowledge base of datos.gob.es. The system guides the user in constructing the question, showing multiple texts to start and continue the sentence with. It allows the use of terms of the system (metadata) and their synonyms, the construction of the query in multiple ways (not everyone asks in the same way), the creation of queries in different languages and most importantly, the system is oriented towards data and not only towards metadata, allowing the user to explore data whilst creating the query.
THE FINALISTS
LicitaLio
A prototype that compares public sector contracts from different regions. It is a comparison site that, by using datamining and clustering techniques, it improves access to public sector contracts to help select and re-use the best tenders according to the needs of the interested administration.
Licensius
A prototype that studies the license of the data sets published on datos.gob.es. It proposes a mechanism that characterises licenses, using natural language processing techniques (NLP), that quickly detects what public administration resources are duly licensed to be re-used and which have conditions of use that need to be readjusted.
Anfitrión
A system that helps to identify the type of data (pdf, xml, etc.) and transform its structure to a legible code, in this case JSON. This client-server tool acts as an interpreter to transform data sets in different formats to the JSON format, easily re-useable by companies and by other administrations.
Análisis de contenidos de comunicación ciudadana
A prototype that helps to actively listen to citizens on Twitter and their classification, achieving a relationship where citizens speak with the government. An initiative aimed at helping governments to quickly answer citizens by analysing citizen-government channels of communication, and identifying the interests prior to requesting information.
Noticias Abiertas
Explores the news from data, combining natural language processing with automatic learning techniques. It is a recommendation system for open data sets for public administrations, linking them with content generated by digital media, benefiting active citizen participation and transparency of local governments.
Funding analytics for Innovation projects
A web tool that helps to visualise and search for results of R+D projects financed by different public administrations in Spain and Europe. This tool is based on open data of R+D projects and will help to analyse and visualise granting of subsidies, detecting research trends that help local governments to evaluate and create new lines of business for companies.
Mi Turno
A mobile app to manage waiting times for citizens at public organisations and administrations. Reflecting the number of people waiting in offices associated to a government service, it helps to analyse and manage the waiting times and, therefore, to improve government efficiency.
Evento
The seventh edition of the Aporta Meeting will be held next October 24, and this year has as its motto "The value of data in the global ecosystem", in which experts in open data, both national and international, will describe their views regarding the publication of public sector data and its reuse.
The meeting, open to all, will be organized in morning and afternoon sessions with round tables, talks and presentations. In the afternoon, as the final act of the conference, the Aporta awards will be given (aimed at recognizing the best experiences already completed in reuse of public data), as well as the awards to the winners of the Aporta Challenge (ideas, applications , solutions and/or services that use and reuse public data contributing to an improvement of efficiency in public administrations in Spain).
The event, which will also have various pre-events of a sectoral nature on the previous days, is organized by Red.es in collaboration with the Ministries of Energy, Tourism and Digital Agenda, and Finance and Public Function.
Noticia
Under the slogan "The value of data in the global ecosystem", the Aporta Meeting this year celebrates its seventh edition. It will take place on 24 October, organized by Red.es in collaboration with the Ministries of Energy, Tourism and Digital Agenda, and Finance and Public Service.
Experts on open data, both Spanish and international, will present their views on the publication of public sector data and reuse.
The meeting will be split into morning and afternoon sessions and will feature various sectoral pre-events to be held on the days before the meeting.
This seventh edition has been structured around three thematic blocks. The first will consist of a panel discussion on the value of open data. Several speakers will present practical experiences aimed at showing how proper exploitation of data has a clear socio-economic impact, both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Developments in the international context of policies on the reuse of public sector data constitute the second thematic block, which will be attended by representatives of those international organizations which are considered as a benchmark in this area, such as the European Commission and the OECD.
The third thematic block will address the development of new technologies related to data, such as, notably, the internet of things or natural language processing, and all of which should be taken into account due to their potential and projection in the field of Public sector data and reuse.
In the evening, to draw the conference to a close, the conclusions of the different pre-events held in the days before the Aporta Meeting will be presented and the the presentation ceremony will also take place of the Aporta Awards (aimed at recognizing the best experiences already completed in reuse of public data), as well as the awards to the winners of the Aporta Challenge (ideas, applications, solutions and/or services that use and reuse public data contributing to improved efficiency of public administrations in Spain).
We encourage everyone in the open data community to set aside the 24 October as a date to participate, discuss and share experiences in the Aporta 2017 Meeting.
Noticia
Here at the Aporta Initiative we invite ingenious minds to come up with ideas with the purpose of promoting creative solutions that represent improvements in the efficiency of the Administration through the use of open data.
This is the objective of Aporta Challenge 2017, an initiative promoted by the Secretariat of State for the Information Society and the Digital Agenda, the Public Business Entity Red.es, and the General Secretariat for Digital Administration.
Our goal is to encourage the direct re-use of public open datasets for the improvement of the public sector, by encouraging the talent, technical capacity and creativity of the participants.
Phases of the Challenge
The challenge consists of two phases, as described in the Competition Rules. During Phase I, which concludes on June 14, participants are invited to come up with ideas on how reuse of open data is an improvement in efficiency in the public sector. To do so, please fill out the form available on the Red.es website.
The ideas received will be evaluated during the month of July by a distinguished jury composed of professionals from the open data sector, the digital economy, academia and bodies collaborating in the event.
At the end of July 2017 the ten winning ideas will be made public and their authors invited to participate in Phase II of the challenge. As of that date, the authors of the final winning selections will be requested to develop a prototype associated with the idea put forward, which they will present during the seminar prior to the Aporta 2017 Convention, to be held on October 27, 2017 in Madrid at the headquarters of Red.es (Plaza Manuel Gómez Moreno s / n).
The three winning prototypes will be announced during the Aporta Convention which will take place the following day in Madrid in the Auditorium of the State Secretariat for the Information Society and Digital Agenda (C / Capitán Haya 41).
Open Data
In order to put forward ideas and prototypes, participants should take into account the use of open data generated by public administrations, whether national or international, published under an open license, this being mandatory, as well as data from private entities, which is optional
Open to the European Union
To participate, it is only necessary to have in mind a relevant, useful, quality idea for improving the efficiency of Public Administrations. Any citizen, company or research group of the European Union may participate in the Challenge, as indicated in the Competition Rules of the Challenge.
Monetary awards
The three best prototypes presented will opt for three monetary prizes according to the following amounts:
- First placed: € 3,000
- Second placed: € 2,000
- Third placed: € 1,000
Full information from data.gob.es and in the Competition Rules of the Challenge.
