The open data ecosystem returned to full strength after the summer. During these autumn months, numerous initiatives have emerged to promote the use, reuse and dissemination of open data. They have been very productive weeks, so it has been impossible to collect them all in one post. However, we present you a small selection that will surely be of your interest.

Tools and applications to access more open data

We begin the review of the new developments that have emerged this fall in the open data ecosystem with the initiatives that have been encouraged to make available public data through various tools. We present you some of them:

• Castellón Provincial Council has presented its open data observatory, a great platform of updated information that includes indicators with the actions carried out by the Council to address the COVID, an area of good practice, a section with information on the Council of Reusers and the Provincial Council's Open Data Portal.
• Valencia City Council has renewed its Geoportal with the Smart City app, which shows thousands of open data of the city in fields such as mobility, wifi points, gardening, markets, sports or cultural elements.
• The University of Extremadura has made public its new research portal. The portal automatically collects the scientific and transfer production of the researchers without requiring any effort from the user.
• Ponferrada City Council, together with the company Rendytel, has presented a project to measure air quality in public spaces and buildings using technology based on IoT devices, which provide open data to all citizens. Through their mobile phones, users can find out the state of the air and the level of ventilation in real time and, therefore, assess the possible risk of contagion of Covid-19.

Although this is not a new initiative, we would like to take this opportunity to highlight that the Junta de Castilla y León has received the NovaGob Excellence Award for its work on transparency when displaying data on its portal.

Examples of reuse

Did you know that public bodies, in addition to continuing to open up their information, also continue to create services and products based on its reuse? Here are three examples from this fall:

• The University of Valladolid has developed the application 'Casual Learn', which is based on open data to help users learn art history. The application suggests learning tasks taking into account the interests and location of the user.
• Casual Learn was one of the winning projects in the 4th Castilla y León Open Data Competition, in this case in the category of Teaching Resources. In the Products and Services category, the winner was "Escovid19data", a collaborative collection of data from COVID-19 by province in Spain, while "Castilla y León en remoto" took first place in the ideas category and "Coverage of coronavirus diagnostic tests in Spain" in the data journalism category.
• Onda Town Council has presented an app which offers information on free parking spaces, traffic conditions, environmental parameters and pharmacies on duty. This application is part of the Onda Smart City project, a project which turned out to be the winner of the 12th Aslan Awards, as we reported a few months ago.

In addition to public bodies, we also want to highlight the work done by the four young Basques who have created Dataseeds, a platform at the service of European agricultural SMEs to offer a large amount of open data and facilitate their evolution towards a green transition. With their solution, they have come third in the "A European Green Deal" challenge in the EU Datathon 2020.

Events, courses and publications aimed at disseminating open data

But if there is a reason why autumn has stood out, it has been because of the great number of events, competitions, webinars and other activities aimed at promoting open data.

• Este otoño Asedie ha estrenado nuevo blog. Entre los contenidos que aborda destaca la transformación digital, la inteligencia artificial o los datos abiertos, siempre con el foco puesto en las empresas infomediarias.
• La Iniciativa Aporta acompañó a Databeers Málaga en su primera edición online, que este año estuvo dedicada a los datos abiertos de Copernicus. Si quieres conocer más sobre nuestra participación en esta jornada, puedes hacerlo aquí.
• The Government Obert Chair promoted by the Polytechnic University of Valencia, has transferred to the participants in the Autumn Camp of Transparency and Data Management, the foundations for the understanding of concepts related to open data management. In addition, the Valencian Community has announced during this period that it will train companies and professionals in smart city technologies through the project 'Ciudades conectadas y habitable'.
• Open data not only serves to bring applications to life, but also to enrich journalistic and literary works. The Generalitat de Catalunya has published the book "Open data and artificial intelligence, tools for gender equality". This writing allows us to reflect on how open data is also a key element in the fight against gender discrimination.
• Open data competitions have been a constant throughout the autumn: the Aporta Challenge, the Basque Country Open Data competition, BiscayApp...

Some international proposals

At the international level, some very interesting initiatives have also emerged this autumn.

• The World Bank has launched an open water data portal to help countries make informed decisions that will lead to a water-secure world.
• During these months, the European Data Portal has organized different webinars to address the future of open data portals, where experiences, good practices and opportunities for action have been shown to ensure that open data portals remain useful for the community. These webinars will run until January.
• We end with an international news, but with a local component. Brussels awards a Spanish consortium Yoda, its new European project based on open data. This is the development of a platform for any European citizen to create their own personalized board where they can order different sources of information according to their interests.

These are just some of the most prominent examples that have emerged in the world of open data during the autumn months of 2020. However, if you know of any other news that may be of interest, please do not hesitate to mention it in the comments or send us an email to dinamizacion@datos.gob.es.