open data

The fifth edition of the International Open Data Conference (IODC) is already underway. This year, it will be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on September 27-28. This biannual event brings together the international open data community with the objective of sharing, planning and collaborating on different current and future initiatives.

IODC seeks to identify and explore new trends that are emerging around open data, promoting innovative solutions capable of generating economic and social impact in different sectors. The event is also an opportunity to consolidate international relations and promote common resources development.

The Future is Open, central topic of this edition

2018 IODC sessions will focus on challenges and opportunities facing the open data community, under the title The Future is Open.

IODC organizers are committed to creating an inclusive and innovative event, including issues of concern to the international community. Therefore, the agenda will be created  through a global call for proposals, that search for inclusion of all voices achieve the greatest possible level of gender balance and regional diversity.

The call for porposals will be open between February 14 and April 1, 2018. A committee comprised of open data experts, including representatives of public and private organizations and academic institutions, will evaluate all submissions received.

Submissions should target one of three conference tracks:

• The Big Picture (45 minutes-1 hour): Panels and debates focused on the exploration of emerging trends and challenges. They can include topics related to privacy, gender, algorithms, Big Data, artificial intelligence or other emerging technologies.

• Action Track (45 minutes-1 hour): Sessions and workshops that allow for the exchange of information. This category includes interactive discussions, brainstorming sessions, cases studies or roundtables. Sessions should contribute to enrich international collaboration areas identified in previous conferences.

• Impact Track (10-15 minutes): Short and dynamic sessions that show concrete examples of open data use within the different sectors, such as agriculture, education, health or transport, among others.

It is important to mention that those proposals that identify specific challenges and promote the search for solutions through dialogue will have preference.  Proposals focused on gender issues that promote parity in participation, practices and processes will also highlight.

This year's conference will also highlight The State of Open Data initiative. This project focuses on the review of open data movement development during the last 10 years, with the aim of learning from errors and generating recommendations and good practices.

Madrid, headquarter of the previous edition

IODC previous edition took place in Madrid, on October 6 - 7, 2018. More than 1,600 attendees from a hundred countries visited  the Spanish capital to participate in some of the 87 sessions given by more than 300 experts.

You can read event conclusions in the following link:  IOCD Madrid 2016 conclusions.

Next September Madrid will host the third edition of Chief Data Officer Day, an event focused on the latest developments and strategic and technological keys in an Open Data scenario, which this year plans to gather more than 300 experts in the management and exploitation of data.

In coming years, the key challenges of many companies will mean putting "data" at the centre of the business and becoming a Data Driven Company. Companies such as Endesa, Orange, Banca March, Travel Club, among others, will be present at this event to discuss new information systems, Data Management, Data Governance Technologies, and so on. According to Gartner, 15% of the current CDOs (Chief Digital Officers) will be promoted to Managing Director or CEO in the next 5 years. The future of companies inevitably involves generating value from the management and exploitation of the information they keep.

The meeting will be attended by more than 40 Data Driven Companies from the public sector (Ministry of Industry, DGT, Correos) and private (Blablacar, Mediaset, Rastreator, Cajamar, Endesa, Carrefour, Uniplaces, Cabify and Viajes el Corte Inglés among other leading companies).

The event also announces as a new element the latest trends and innovative success stories regarding Datalake, Anonimization, Machine Learning, Data Visualization and Data Governance, among others. One of the issues to be addressed will be how to transition from the classic Dataware House model to the Datalake, as well as how to implement a Data Governance strategy. Also to be addressed will be Data Management to achieve reliability, traceability and data control and analytics to extract insights of value to streamline decision making through technology.

The event will take place next September 26 at the Novotel Madrid Center Hotel. Más información. 

The Aporta Initiative (datos.gob.es) is present from Monday 22 May until Wednesday morning at the Open Data Leardes Network (ODLN) meeting held at the headquarters of the Open Data Institute (ODI) in London, bringing together leaders of government open data initiatives in Europe.

Open Data program managers and managers from eleven European countries (Italy, Germany, Spain, Lithuania, United Kingdom, Slovenia, Denmark, Switzerland, Latvia and the Netherlands) are present at this event to exchange experiences and analyse objectives regarding the management of public administration open data . These exchange days are conceived as an opportunity for managers who lead the design and implementation of the open data programs of their respective governments to meet and share experiences on open data.

Among the topics that will be addressed during the three sessions of the Open Data Leaders Network, the highlights will be "Orientation of communication: who are your users?", "Open data leadership: what do you want to tell them?" and "Talking about open data". Attendees will have the opportunity to hear first-hand two startups -Globechain y ET Index- that use open public data and examine how users discover and interact with data, as well as share experiences with open data in the sessions "Leading the Open data exchange in government" and "Policy design patterns" in which they can explore different policies related to the data that government agencies and departments are carrying out. The Open Data Leardes Network has also raised in this meeting how to persuade the public of the value of open data.

The Open Data Leaders Network aims to connect open data coordinators and consultants in public administrations and/or entities to exchange ideas, discuss strategies and problem solving, and share ideas to address the challenges of implementation and consolidation of Data. These meetings are supported by the International Development Research Centre as part of the Open Data for Development (OD4D) network and the European Commission.

The first meeting took place in February 2015 with the participation of those responsible for the implementation of government open data initiatives in the United Kingdom, Chile, Morocco and Macedonia, among others.

More information about the programme and attendees: https://theodi.org/open-data-leaders-network

On Friday, April 21, a workshop dedicated to data science in the social and health sector will take place in Media-Lab Prado, Madrid. A meeting designed for professionals and researchers specialized in the data analysis for social purposes and belonging to the health science.

The event will start with a specific session on the analysis of urban mobility through big data, followed by two talks related to the healthcare sector under the titles "Big4Cast: prediction of crisis in bipolar disorder" and "machine learning in EGG predictive analysis ".

As a clousure of the day, the attendees will be able to learn about the work of other experts in the field through the poster exhibition that will take place during the workshop. Those professionals who have sent their pieces of work to vlopezlo@ucm.es will obtain the corresponding certificate. Afterwards, a round table will be held where five representatives of public and private entities will discuss on the following topics:

• Social development with maps (ESRI España).

• Healthcare research (Fujitsu).

• Madrid Salud (WAP).

• Innovation in the cloud (AWS).

• Open Data (City of Madrid).

To attend at the workshop, participants need to register before through the Eventbrite webpage. 

In reference to the Open Government Data Working Group of the World Bank, could you explain how the entity contributes to the opening and re-use of public information?

The World Bank has been providing technical assistance, capacity building and funding for developing countries’ Open Data programs since 2012. Its activities can be summarized under four domains: (a) tools, (b) technical assistance, (c) capacity building and (d) networks and inter-institutional collaboration.

On tools for open data, the Bank publishes and continually updates an Open Data Toolkit Open Data Toolkit that provide a set of curated resources for initiating or deepening an open data program. The tools include basic explanation of what is open data; advice on open data licensing and technology options, training opportunities, research, examples of apps and other uses of open data by sector and many other similar tools. Some of these tools have been developed by the World Bank, but the large majority have been developed by other institutions.

On technical assistance and funding, most developed countries are already harvesting the economic and social benefits that Open Government Data brings about, thus, one of the objectives of the World Bank is to take that knowledge and similar Open Data programs to developing countries. Currently, the World Bank has around 26 Open Data-related lending projects at different completion stages that are being, totally or partially financed, by one of the two lending windows of the World Bank: IBRD or IDA. Some of these projects also have a significant trust fund component.

“One of the objectives of the World Bank is to take that knowledge and similar Open Data programs to developing countries.”

The Bank has primarily focused on two approaches for capacity development on use and engagement with open data.  The first approach has been to collaborate with civic hacker communities around opened data, through an array of generally low-cost hackathons (including on ‘hackable’ questions in key development areas, such as domestic violence, water quality and access, and sanitation).  The second approach is more time and resource-intensive – it focuses on short term ‘open data bootcamps’ or long-term ‘deep dive’ open data training and efforts to institutionalize a ‘culture’ of open data among government and non-government groups.  This approach prioritizes the strengthening of sustainable, endemic (self-reinforcing) capacity and use of open data up and down value chains without subsequent external support.  Additional examples include efforts to integrate teaching curricula on open data into university environments and to integrate open data into private sector business models.

The World Bank has been a main sponsor of the last 3 International Open Data Conferences (Washington 2012, Ottawa 2015 and Madrid 16) and has committed to sponsor the next one (Argentina 2018). The Bank is a funder and founding member of the Open Data for Development (OD4D) program, along with the Canadian Government, the International Development Research Center and DFID. Both directly and through OD4D the Bank also sponsors regional conferences, such as ConDatos (official conference) and AbreLatam (unconference) in Latin America, Africa Open Data conferences and similar ones in other regions that host developing countries. Lastly, the Bank is also a member, but not always a leader, of other global groups that work on Open Data for Development, such as the Open Data Working Group of the OGP, the Open Contracting Data Partnership, the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, The Open Data Charter and others.

Among the functions of the working group, what would you highlight and what are their lines of action? In what projects is the group currently immersed?

One of the most important tools in the Toolkit is the Open Data Readiness Assessment (ODRA), a quick diagnostic and action plan builder, tailored to each country’s legislation, institutions and demand/supply of data. The ODRA includes analysis and recommendations in 8 areas: leadership, policy/legal framework, institutions & capacities, data supply, data demand, civic engagement and capability, funding, and national IT infrastructure. ODRA assessments and the resulting reports are joint products of a small Government team and a Bank team. The methodology can be applied at the national, sub-national, city or agency level. Sectoral adaptations of the methodology have been done for energy and transport. The next section has more information on the countries where ODRAs have been done.

As explained above, there are currently 26 active projects financed by a combination of Bank’s own budget, trust funds, IBRD or IDA, or a combination of these. Since 2012 we have supported around 45 open data initiatives in developing countries.

When IBRD or IDA projects count with full government support, ODRA implementation and other related Open Data initiatives can be deepened and expanded, since IDA/IBRD projects assign larger amounts and take several years of implementation. Also, once the Open Data initiative or ODRA implementation is concluded, there is a great possibility to use Open Data applications to shed light on some individual sectors of the economy that need more technical support or financial assistance from IBRD or IDA.

 “Since 2012 we have supported around 45 open data initiatives in developing countries.”

 How do you think that opening up public information and citizen participation in government processes can boost development in emerging economies? Could you illustrate this with some real cases?

When data are made widely available and easy to use, the benefits can be significant. Broadly speaking, the benefits of Open Data include:

• Transparency. Open Data supports public oversight of governments and helps reduce corruption by enabling greater transparency. For instance, Open Data makes it easier to monitor government activities, such as tracking public budget expenditures and impacts. It also encourages greater citizen participation in government affairs and supports democratic societies by providing information about voting procedures, locations and ballot issues.
• Public Service Improvement. Open Data gives citizens the raw materials they need to engage their governments and contribute to the improvement of public services. For instance, citizens can use Open Data to contribute to public planning, or provide feedback to government ministries on service quality.
• Innovation and Economic Value. Public data, and their re-use, are key resources for social innovation and economic growth. Open Data provides new opportunities for governments to collaborate with citizens and evaluate public services by giving citizens access to data about those services. Businesses and entrepreneurs are using Open Data to better understand potential markets and build new data-driven products.
• Efficiency. Open Data makes it easier and less costly for government ministries to discover and access their own data or data from other ministries, which reduces acquisition costs, redundancy and overhead. Open Data can also empower citizens with the ability to alert governments to gaps in public datasets and to provide more accurate information.

Several concrete examples of the use of Open Data in specific countries and sectors can be found here.

It will take time to fully understand the complexity and broad potential of Open Data, as the benefits of Open Data impact on broader populations and additional useful options are continuously discovered.

The World Bank has its own open data portal. You could mention some outstanding project - visualization, service, app ... - that has reused the information of the platform and that has had a positive social impact in its environment.

The World Bank provides several tools to enable use of its own data. These include the Bank’s Open Data website and Databank, which allow users to search, visualize and download development data quickly and easily. The Bank also provides data via application programming interfaces (APIs), which has enabled the development of many third-party apps and greatly expanded the ways in which Bank data can be put to use.

Here are some examples:

• Google incorporates development data from the World Bank into its search engine. Searches for common, country-level development indicators such as GDP of Ethiopia typically produce a visualization of relevant data, sourced from the World Bank’s open data API.
• StatPlanet allows users to select and visualize over 3,000 development indicators for nearly every dimension of economic, social and human development. StatPlanet was the winner of the World Bank’s Apps for Development competition, and its technology has been incorporated into the Bank’s EdStats education data portal.
• Save the Rain is an app that uses World Bank open data to estimate the agricultural impacts of small-scale water conservation on a local scale. Save the Rain was one of the finalists in the World Bank’s Apps for Climate competition.
• WB Panorama is another Apps for Climate finalist that uses World Bank open data to show the impact of climate change on crop yields and local living conditions.

In addition, open data best practices enable other governments and organizations to redistribute World Bank data with virtually no transaction costs. For example, when Edo State, Nigeria launched its open data portal in 2014, it copied open data for that region from the World Bank as a way to augment its own data offerings. Open data allowed Edo State to provide its citizens with a broader set of useful data in a single repository than would have been possible otherwise.

Following your participation in the last edition of the International Open Data Conference held in Madrid. How would you rate the current state of the open data sector on a global scale? What immediate needs do you detect and what do you consider to be the next steps necessary to move forward in openness?

While open data is showing signs of increasing maturity in developed countries and some developing countries, the state of progress is heterogeneous and its impact is hard to measure.  Why is open data succeeding in some contexts and failing to achieve traction in others? Open data is more useful and actionable when it is a strategic element of a larger development initiative and not pushed forward as a standalone issue. There is evidence that open data is progressing where it is aligned with other important agendas such as the climate change or national development plans, as well as with regional and sector-specific discussions, for example standards and best practices in contracting, statistics, transport, open cities’ data and more.  There is also noticeable interest in business models for open data. The future of open data is largely linked to the extent to which the agendas and activities of the organizations and individuals within the open data community align around concrete, shared priorities. 

Realizing the potential of open data for decision-making requires making open data and its applications work for everyone, creating tools for a broad audience and identifying data to be opened based on larger efforts to improve the lives of all people, including the poor, the marginalized, and the chronically underserved.

“The future of open data is largely linked to the extent to which the agendas and activities of the organizations and individuals within the open data community align around concrete, shared priorities.”

In contrast to previous years, the Madrid Conference showed that National Statistical Offices (‘NSOs’) are emerging as a potentially important stakeholder group. This is a qualitative leap for open data in developing countries, where NSOs are often the primary (if not the only) source of high-quality, official data.

Advocates for grassroots open data initiatives in many developing countries need financial, material, and human support. The international community is increasingly interested in data for development. However, it is unclear whether open data has the same level of priority in their agenda. Also, models for implementation that work in the developed world may need to be reconsidered, and merged with other approaches that recognize different circumstances in developing countries.  With this in mind, the business case for open data still needs to be showcased wherever possible (e.g. public services’ efficiencies resulting from open data, contributions to economic growth, job creation, etc.)

Another challenge in developing country contexts is the availability of quality data, on a predictable and frequent schedule and with enough metadata to make it useful for reuse. Use of common taxonomies is essential to extract maximum value from data already opened, and I think we are just starting on this.

On June 1, Madrid will host the fourth edition of Conference on FLOSS (software and free code) and Open Economy. The aim of the Open Expo is bringing together leading companies and institutions, developers, hackers, experts, suppliers and users to learn about technology solutions and trends on open source, open source, open data and innovation.

Since 2012, each of the events has sought to promote the use and development of free and open software to boost the collaborative philosophy and democratize the access to information technologies. For that purpose, there have been several events dedicated to specific topics such as e-commerce, business intelligence, content managers or elearning, among others.

On this occasion, the Open Expo is focused on addressing the latest challenges related to open source and digital transformation. An opportunity to discover how this technology can modernize businesses and help companies on their way to innovation and the digital transformation of their corporate operations.

In this regard, the organisers of the event has launched a call to find speakers who participate in the congress sharing their success stories and experiences in the field of open technologies, showing how open source and free software have helped improve their business activities or presenting their open source projects.

To participate, it is necessary to apply before March 2 through the official page of the event; a jury will analyze the proposals and select the most relevant ideas in the field to be discussed.

In addition, among the activities organized this year, apart from the showroom where the main companies of the industry show their services and products, there will be an investment forum, Open StartUp Connector, where a twelve start-ups will present to potential investors their ICT projects based onpen code/data, or developed through free tools or software.

At the same time, networking activities with experts are also planned to discuss on cybersecurity, big data and IoT solutions and, moreover, the Open Awards Spain 2017 will take place, which awardsthe best solutions developed with open source technology at the national level.

From 27 to 28 April the international conference OD4CH is organized in Milan, an opportunity to discuss and deepen methodological and practical approaches for the digitization of cultural heritage. This meeting is designed as a collaborative space where participants can work on new models and actions of cultural heritage management based on the re-use of open data and the use of free software.

The goal of the conference is raising the citizen's awareness of democratizing access to common goods, through open data policies and open licenses. After all, opening up this public information would help in the decision-making of the cultural sector and would improve the current improvement and conservation procedures.

The call for proposals is already open 

All experts and academics specialized in digital humanities, architectural design, urban planning and design, data journalism or heritage management can attend as speakers at the next conference. To do this, they must submit before 17 March a summary of their project - in English or Italian - related to open linked data for cultural heritage; GIS and free software in the management of cultural heritage; the role and impact of open data in the information and communication of cultural heritage or the history of architectural analysis based on open data; among other possible topics.

The organizing committee is looking for innovative ideas that will be analyzed and evaluated according to their originality, relevance, clarity, impact and solidity. On March 24, the names of the selected candidates will be communicated, who must submit a document explaining the project in depth, being interviewed by a jury before presenting their idea at the International Conference.

If you want to attend, all the information is available on its official website: https://od4ch.org/conference/.

The International Open Data Day is celebrated on Saturday 4 March. For the fifth time in history, organizations around the world and local groups will create different events, conferences, workshops and activities in their community to show the benefits of open data and their re-use while promoting the adoption of open data policies in governments, companies and civil society.

In Spain, the institutions Open Knowledge España, ODI Madrid and Medialab-Prado organize the Open Data Day Madrid. It is an open data hackathon where developers, programmers, designers, journalists and users have the opportunity to participate in different projects to re-use open data.

In this edition, the international organization will focus on four key areas in which open data play an important role: Open research data, tracking public money flows, open data for environmental and open data for rights humans. In addition to these issues, the Madrid call will include in its agenda a workshop on data journalism: La España Vacía (The Empty Spain). This activity, organized by MediaLab-Prado, is aimed at data journalists, statisticians or analysts who re-use the data to elaborate a journalistic story related to demographic flows in Spain, spatial planning or differences between rural or urban areas, among others.

Since 2 February, the call for proposals is open, participants have to collect and analyse data from reliable and localized sources, presenting their projects with an open license that allows their reuse and distribution. The selected projects will be advised by national and international media professionals and experts in data analysis, treatment and visualization.

MediaLab-Prado also invites the participants to show their projects in the event Open Data Day Madrid, so the rest of attendees have the opportunity to enrich the data sources of the projects before the submission deadline, on 12 March.

Those people who want to work on one of the projects selected during one of the three sessions of the workshop that will take place in April, May or June may register as collaborators in the Medialab-Prado website from March 6. The rest of the open data community that wants to attend or share their ideas during the Open Data Day Madrid can join the Medialab list on data journalism or contact OKFN Spain sending an email to okfn@okfn.es or via their official Twitter account @okfn_spain.

In 2011 the project Sharing is caring was born in Denmark. An initiative  to organize different national seminars that promote the openness of the information of the GLAM sector (galleries, libraries, archives and museums).

The first event took place in November 2011 bringing together a large number of participants from all over Denmark, from large and small institutions, museums, libraries, archives, educational institutions and members of the Wikipedia community. Such was the success of this initial call that Sharing's Caring also attracted assistants of other Nordic countries, working together in the development of a technological framework that allowed to share the digitized collections with the rest of the world, promoting the international cooperation for the development of the  GLAM sector in the XXI century.

Desde entonces, Sharing’s Caring organiza cada dos años una conferencia donde se abordan diferentes aspectos relevantes en la apertura de los datos culturales que incluyen desde casos reales que muestran el impacto de la digitalización de contenidos hasta paneles específicos donde artistas, profesionales del sector y expertos en copyright debaten sobre arte contemporáneo, medios digitales y derecho de propiedad.

Since then, Sharing's Caring has organized a conference every two years where different aspects of the open cultural data are discussed, including real cases that show the impact of the content digitization and specific panels where artists, professionals and experts in Copyright discuss on contemporary art, digital media and property rights.

Digitization and social impact?

As digitalisation has become an important task for the cultural sector, more and more institutions are providing access to their collections in digital format. However, open data goes beyond the mere online access to information, it involves sharing the authority to interpret those assets and encourage their re-use.

In this context, the following questions arise: How can open data in the GLAM sector become a joint advantage for institutions, as well as for their public and society in general? What are the challenges faced by the movement in terms of copyright, institutional policies and social impact? These issues will be answered at the next two conferences that Sharing is Caring has organized this year.

For the first time in its history, the initiative crosses its borders in April 2017 to hold an extension of its national conference in the city of Hamburg. With the collaboration of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe and the University of Hamburg, from 20 to 21 April there will be different talks and workshops where participants will share their experiences and knowledge about open access to cultural content.

Moreover, the fifth edition of the Sharing is Caring seminar will be held in Aarhus (Denmark) in November, where, under the same motto as the German call, the role of the open cultural data in citizen participation and its impact on society will be discussed. 

Would you like to assit? For more information on each event, visit the official Sharing's Caring website: http://sharecare.nu/

From February 22 to 23, the seventh edition of the National Innovation and Public Services Convention (CNIS) will take place in Madrid. Under the motto "The challenge of creating public value for citizenship", the attendees will discuss how to manage the digital transformation of Public Administrations in Spain.

The CNIS has been consolidated as the main event on eGovernment at national level, bringing together representatives of the public sector, companies of the sector and technological experts to value the work done by the Administration; increase the base of good practices that guide other public bodies;  provide advice to each stakeholder involved in the digital transformation of the Administration; provide interoperable and unique platforms for public services; strengthen ntetworks between the public and private spheres and, finally, identify the most current trends in e-government developments.

As in previous calls, the convention is structured in four different spaces -auditorium, communications room, demo space and column room- where attendees can enjoy round tables, presentations, projects and networking sessions to exchange ideas with other public members and companies.  

The open data, open government and PSI movement also has its own space with the round table "Re-use of public sector information" with the participation of five local, regional and national public sector representatives - one of them belonging to the team of Iniciativa Aporta; the presentation of the head of planning and modernization service of the Ayto de Gijón, Fernando Álvarez, on open government and intelligent territories or the talk about anonymity, transparency and data protection that will be given by the entity SERIKAT C & I.

Finally, this convention will host the CNIS awards that reward the done by the Public Administrations along the year, with fourteen categories and two special awards for the professional career and the most innovative project.