The document summarizes key points from the International Open Government Data Conference. It discusses the objectives of the conference, which was to share lessons learned about open government data and demonstrate its power. It also outlines some of the benefits of open data, such as improving accountability and creating economic opportunities. Finally, it emphasizes that successfully implementing open government data requires focusing on creating an ecosystem around the data through activities like skills training, prototyping, and scaling successful projects.

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
• “The purpose of Data.gov is to
increase public access to high-
value, machine-readable datasets
generated by the Executive Branch
of the Federal Government”
• More than 450,000 datasets
• Several communities & community
features
• Launch of Open Government
Platform (OGPL) in May 2012
• Launched in April 2010
• “Bringing global economic and
development data to the web for
the world to use”
• Centered around
data.worldbank.org
• Indicators, data catalog, microdata
• Next frontier for open data at World
Bank: help governments open up
(Jim Yong Kim)
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 fend off
demands for more press freedom
• Valid reasons not to share/open
up data
o National security
o Privacy
o Creating inequality, e.g., due to
digital divide (information is power)
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Photo: stevendepolo via flickr

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, datapaloozas,
challenges, seed funding)
• Enable rapid prototyping (e.g., in
incubator spaces)
• Scale success (venture funds)
Examples at OIGDC: Kenya, Brazil, Mexico, Moldova
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Photo: thinkpanama via flickr

8. Keys to success
• Focus on bigger agenda than just launching a portal
• Involve all data owners and stakeholders early on
• Engage data users (entrepreneurs, developers, journalists)
and citizens to encourage the use of data
• Use standardization carefully: can be useful or straightjacket
• 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 innovative uses for data
• Improve access for others via software/portal
• Redistribute data to specific audiences, e.g., mywarming.org
from opendata.org
• Collect complementary data
• Request sharing/opening of
additional data
• Overcome challenges
o Understand data
o Find partners
o Get funding
o Achieve financial sustainability
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Photo: edbury via flickr

10. Key points
• 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
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Photo: Erik Moberg via flickr