Post on 08-Apr-2018
transcript
8/6/2019 OpenTech PresentationV2
1/11
OpenData Cities
Julian Tait@julianlstar
1Tuesday, 24 May 2011
FutureEverything is based in Manchester UK and has been established for 16 years. It started out being a festival of mostly music and art and hassince developed into a cutting edge, international conference looking at the societal impact of technology and mapping various future outcomes, aninternational art and technology award and year a round digital innovation lab.The Open Data Cities project is one such lab that was born out of the then Futuresonic conference in 2009
8/6/2019 OpenTech PresentationV2
2/11
Engels circa 1840
OpenData Cities
2Tuesday, 24 May 2011
The Open Data Cities project arose out of a question. How would cities evolve if all information was openly available. Would a city evolve in thesame way? Would the asymmetries that we find in the cities of today still exist and would they be diminished, shifted or exaggerated.This is a map that Frederich Engels created whilst he was working in his fathers mill in Ancoats, Manchester. It is through this mapping of theinequities of the industrial city that prompted him to write The Plight of the Working Classes. As with most northern hemisphere industrial citiesthe prevailing winds meant that the poorer areas were mostly on the eastern side of the city.
8/6/2019 OpenTech PresentationV2
3/11
Rochdale
206,500
Oldham
217,273
Tameside
215,500
Stockport
281,000
Manchester
483,800
Trafford
211,800
Salford
218,000
Wigan
305,500
Bolton
262,400Bury
183,300
Conceptual overadministrative model of city
Population 2.6 million
OpenData Cities
3Tuesday, 24 May 2011
At the start of the Open Data Cities project, there werent many city based open data initiatives and most of those were in North America and thesewere underpinned by mayoral decree. In 2009 Greater Manchester was slated to become a City Region that would pave the way for an electedmayor for Greater Manchester. In order for City Region status to be granted there had to be some reform as to how the ten local authorities useddata.We saw that the time was right to bring open data to the fore and we set about talking to the 10 local authorities and other public bodies.The idea of talking about the conceptual idea of the city over the administrative one is also key. People work, rest and play across authorities,
people see the city diferently to the administrative model. Also if open data was to be sustainable it would have to have a larger impact - andpotential market - than any one local authority.
8/6/2019 OpenTech PresentationV2
4/11
THREE COMMUNITIES
Data users
Data managers
Executive
OpenData Cities
Not members
4Tuesday, 24 May 2011
FutureEverything sees itself as a grassroots organisation and although it has an international presence and works with many institutions,companies and public bodies, it is sustained by the various communities that engage with it.Community focus was key and it was essential that the project engaged with, created and spoke to as many communities as possible. These couldbe loosely described as Data Users - People who would eventually create services and applications out of data that would be released. It wasessential to engage with and sustain this community as we had to prove demand in the system for data release.Data Managers - People who had day to day contact with data. Often the people who we thought would know about data didnt. We had a great
deal of help from people who dealt with FOI requestsExecutive - Initially these people were dicult to engage. It was through persistence and being awarded a small amount of funding that wemanaged to get their ear.We did not try and engage member as we were wary of making open data in Greater Manchester a party political issue.
8/6/2019 OpenTech PresentationV2
5/11
BUILDING MOMENTUM BY
TARGETING VALUABLE DATA
OpenData Cities
5Tuesday, 24 May 2011
The establishing of the Open Data Manchester community was key to opening up data. The idea that there was a community of people who wereeager to create stufwas appealing to a number of data holders. We were particularly keen on getting hold of data that would have potentialquality of life impact and would get positive press coverage. TfGM - formerly GMPTE - dipped their toe in the water and made their entire bustimetable database open. Which through a hackcamp created a number of transport applications. This eventually encouraged TfGM to commit tomaking other data open.
8/6/2019 OpenTech PresentationV2
6/11
Trafford
ManchesterSalford
Bury
RochdaleBolton
Wigan
StockportOldham
Tameside
TfGM
NHSFire and Rescue
Police
Developer CommunityFutureEverything
Partnership
6Tuesday, 24 May 2011
In September 2010 FutureEverything with Traford Council as the lead were given some funding to deliver DataGM - The Greater ManchesterDatastore. It was an obvious partnership as Traford had seen the potential benefits of creating a centralised repository of Greater Manchestersdata and the potential eciencies that it would create and had started to release open data. The project was energised by executive level buy-in atTraford. This allowed DataGM to form a steering group involving executive nominated ocials from all the local authorities and pan-GreaterManchester public bodies.The datastore is based upon CKAN and is adding more datasets all the time.
8/6/2019 OpenTech PresentationV2
7/11
7Tuesday, 24 May 2011
There is a diagram that was created by the Sunlight Foundation that describes the virtuous circle of open data and transparency. It describes asustainable process where by opening up data, you create a demand for the data from people who can interpret and build value through apps etc.This allows the public to understand more about their society, giving legitimacy and feeding back into government. My description is a grosssimplification of the process but it outlines that open data and transparency has to engage a broad spectrum of people. Journalists are key in thisas they are in a position to interpret and provide context. When the Fire Service released data about fire incidents a number of journalists reportedthe data that it described. This created a better understanding of the diculties that the fire service faced which has encouraged the Fire Service to
look at more data that could be released.
8/6/2019 OpenTech PresentationV2
8/11
8Tuesday, 24 May 2011
At present their hasnt been a deluge of applications built ofdata that has been released. But stuf is being created that is creating value. Acompany called Swirrl has been making linked data out of some of the datasets that have been released on DataGM. This has allowed the data tobe easier to use by application developers. I imagine that with the release of data a lot of the value wont necessarily come from the development ofnovel smartphone applications - in fact I hope it isnt or open data will be constrained. What I think well see are the developments of things thatiteratively add value to data, that will allow people to enhance the things that they are creating already.
8/6/2019 OpenTech PresentationV2
9/11
Environment
We are at the start
Health
Realtime data
9Tuesday, 24 May 2011
We are most definitely at the start of this process. Although live DataGM hasnt been ocially launched. With our colleagues in Traford we arehaving new conversations everyday and there is a sense from many in the public sector that this is a good thing to do. Colleagues in Tra fordworked out that on any working day, there were 600 people in Greater Manchester public bodies, who couldnt find the data that they needed tocarry out their work. That has real impact on the workings of the public sector. This coupled with the cost of approx. 4 million per annum ofservicing FOI requests means that there is a real incentive for the public sector.
8/6/2019 OpenTech PresentationV2
10/11
YES
10Tuesday, 24 May 2011
As far as the initial question as to whether cities would evolve diferently if all information was made open. The answer at the moment is that theasymmetries would still exist and they could become amplified. It is incumbent on ourselves to make sure that this doesnt happen.FutureEverything amongst others, is working on ways that can enhance Data Literacy in communities through working with artists, designers andeducationalists. As we move into a world where being able to understand and navigate through this data becomes more important, these dataskills will become essential.
8/6/2019 OpenTech PresentationV2
11/11
@opendatamcr
@FuturEverything
@julianlstar
@datagm
11Tuesday, 24 May 2011
Some twitter names. I can also be contacted on julian@futureeverything.org