The International Open Government Data Conference in 2012 gathered 400 participants from 50 countries to discuss the potential and challenges of open government data. The event emphasized the importance of creating an ecosystem around data availability, focusing on improved public service, accountability, and economic opportunities. Key takeaways included the need for broader involvement of stakeholders and a shift from just publishing data to encouraging its innovative use.

1. Open Government Data
Insights from the International Open
Government Data Conference
September 17, 2012
Peter Speyer
Director of Data Development

2. The conference
• Objective
Gather policymakers, developers, and others with a keen
interest in open government data to share lessons learned,
stimulate new ideas, and demonstrate the power of
democratizing data
• 400 people / 50 countries / 3 days
• 100 speakers (including 2 days of online lightning talks)
• Policy & technical track
• Presentations and videos online
http://www.data.gov/communities/conference
• LinkedIn Open Data Innovation Group
http://bit.ly/ODNetwork
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3. Organizers
• Launched in May 2009 • Launched in April 2010
• “The purpose of Data.gov is to • “Bringing global economic and
increase public access to high development data to the web for
value, machine readable datasets the world to use”
generated by the Executive Branch
• Centered around
of the Federal Government”
data.worldbank.org
• More than 450,000 datasets • Indicators, data catalog, microdata
• Several communities & community • Next frontier for open data at World
features
Bank: help governments open up
• Launch of Open Government (Jim Yong Kim)
Platform (OGPL) in May 2012 o Mapping aid funded projects:
Malawi done, 13 countries to follow
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4. Benefits of open government data
• Outsource creativity to improve public services:
most of the world’s smartest people don’t work for you
(Sun co-founder Bill Joy)
• Improve accountability of government
• Increase trust in government through transparency
• Save time / expenditure of answering citizens’ data requests
• Enable government to use own data
• Create economic opportunity, e.g. $100B weather data market
• Show gaps in data collected
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5. 5

6. Critical considerations
• Release of irrelevant data to
demonstrate commitment to open
data
• Release of open data to heed off
demands for more press freedom
• Valid reasons not to share / open Photo: stevendepolo via flickr
up data
o National security
o Privacy
o Creating inequality, e.g. due to
digital divide (information is power)
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7. Creating an open data ecosystem
• Only the first step: launch and grow an open data portal
• Market the data to potential data users
• Build community catalyst groups and embed change agents,
e.g. inside media houses
• Build skills (boot camps, master classes, university classes)
• Create proof of concept (e.g. via code-a-thons, data paloozas,
challenges, seed funding)
• Enable rapid prototyping (e.g. in
incubator spaces)
• Scale success (venture funds)
Examples at OIGDC: Kenya, Brazil, Mexico, Moldova
Photo: thinkpanama via flickr
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8. Keys to success
• Focus on bigger agenda than just launching a portal
• Involve all data owners & stakeholders early on
• Engage data users (entrepreneurs, developers, journalists)
and citizens to encourage the use of data
• Use standardization carefully: can be useful or straight jacket
• Consider open source software
• Launching a platform is easy, the real work is making it
sustainable and creating an ecosystem around it

9. Role of the data user
• Create new and innovative uses for data
• Improve access for others via software/portal
• Re-distribute data to specific audiences, e.g. mywarming.org
from opendata.org
• Collect complementary data
• Request sharing / opening of Photo: edbury via flickr
additional data
• Overcome challenges
o Understand data
o Find partners
o Get funding
o Achieve financial sustainability
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10. Key learnings
• Focus of open data discussions will have to
shift from data publishing to data use
• The best validator of open data is usage
• Open data should be optimized for
consumption, not for business/process
• Sustainability of open data depends on
creation of ecosystems around them
• Biggest obstacle for governments to open
data is not doing something
Photo: Erik Moberg via flickr
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