Bristol's open data initiative aims to transform the council's operations amidst significant budget reductions by driving efficiency, collaboration, and citizen engagement. Key strategies include piloting new data platforms, integrating open standards, and fostering regional partnerships for community-driven projects. The ultimate goal is to create an open, programmable city region that empowers local citizens through data and innovation.

1. Bristol’s Open Data Journey
Kevin O’Malley
City Innovation Team Manager
kevin.omalley@bristol.gov.uk

2. Drivers and Opportunities

3. What about the Council?
• Reduced expenditure by 25% in the
last 3 years and will need to reduce by
a further 40% in the next 3
• Choice as to whether to manage
decline or do something different
• We choose;
• To first drive efficiency and then
collaborate, generate income, intervene
early and become a different kind of
organisation
• A platform that connects the capacity and
creativity of the City

4. • “What emerges from the observation of
major organisational changes in the last two
decades…the crisis of an old, powerful but
excessively rigid model associated with the
large vertical corporation”
• “Networks are the fundamental stuff of
which new organisations are and will be
made. And they are able to form and
expand over the main streets and back
alleys of the global economy because of
their reliance on the information power
[data] provided by the new technological
paradigm”
Manuel Castells – The Rise of the Network Society
The rise of platform organisations

6. Our Open Data Journey

7.  Piloting Socrata City Data
Platform - 'try before we
buy' to develop our
capabilities as intelligent
customer
 Open standards and
integration - avoid platforms
becoming the new silos
 Open API for developers to
enable use
 Accept that we will see long
term return on investment
Enable

8.  Open Data Institute Node
and the South West Data
Meet-up Group
 Citizen Sensing
 Playable City - creating
'the pull'
Engage

9.  Hack days, competitions,
challenges with NESTA,
ODI, Watershed, Knowle
West Media Centre,
Bristol Green Capital
2015
 Regional partnerships
with Bath Hacked, ODI
Devon, ODI Hampshire
Encourage

10.  Crocodile - winner of the Green
Digital Challenge - app to
encourage walking to school
 Hills are Evil - winner of the
REACT open data challenge -
prototype accessible route finder
 Community Energy Manager -
winner of NESTA / ODI energy
challenge - support
neighbourhood retrofit and bulk
energy purchase
 City Radar - winner of Young
Rewired State national Festival of
Code - smart reporting of
problems
Four Examples

11.  Data Dome - real time 360 degree,
3D data visualisation eg city
energy use and air quality
 New Intelligent City Operations
Centre
 The Bristol Brain - city modeling
and analytics
 Bristol Is Open – world’s first Open
Programmable City Region
Embed

12. Creating a large scale Internet of Things infrastructure - the
Open, Programmable City Region
Bristol Is Open

13. From the Council as a Platform
to the City as a Platform
‘Data Devolution’ - from
Government to the City
Trust Framework - ‘the Data
Commons’ - from the City to
Citizens
Where next?