Presentation by Rochelle Stewart-Allen on Research Bazaar, Palmerston North, New Zealand on 8 February 2017.
Speakers notes available on download.
Explore the potential of open data...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwX5MAZ6zKI
The industrial revolution changed our world through the economies of scale that it bought about
In this new digital world, it is the economies of speed that are changing the landscape
Data-driven technology drives our every day lives – whether it’s using Google Maps to find where you’re going, online shopping recommendations, streaming your music, searching on Wikipedia or wearing your Fitbit to track your fitness
What is open data?
Governments collect a great deal of information - about the companies it regulates, the built and natural environment, and about individuals - whether it about the delivery of healthcare or criminal justice or other services it provides to us.
When you make all of a dataset available, it allows other people to analyse that data, visualise that data, run comparisons, see trends, develop new apps, and solutions.
It is really, in short, about the process of opening up a whole dataset so that people, other than the people who have collected that data, can actually make use of it in new ways.
What makes all of this significant is not simply that the data is available. It is that the data becomes the raw material to engage other people. It is a tool for participation. The data by itself is really quite meaningless.
We live in a complex data-driven world
Our world generates & accumulates more data than at any other point in history
The Internet of Things and Big Data are collecting millions of lines of data every hour from sensors, mobile phones, cameras & software logs
Governments, business and community organisations are actively opening up data & using data that others have released
How we live and how we work is being fundamentally transformed by this new digital world
How is data being used differently? Tim Baker from Thomson Reuters talks about transforming raw data into intelligence in the following ways:
Get the data free, sell the insight back
Find the insight and find the opportunity
Give away for free, and build trust
Harness the crowd, and improve quality of data
Re-sell a high-quality, integrated data source
Here’s what open data can do:
SOCIAL OUTCOMES ECONOMIC OUTCOMES
Fostering economic growth and creating jobs: helping launch new businesses or make businesses more efficient; improve the job market; creating jobs (data science is considered one of the best jobs to have in the future)
Improving efficiency and effectiveness : open data can help strengthen healthcare systems by connecting patients to providers; promotes education and ongoing learning; and improves food security on both a large and small scale
ncreasing transparency & accountability, & citizen participation in government decision-making: the more open & transparent governments are, the less corruption can exist; providing environmental sustainability through reducing pollution, protecting & conserving natural resources; building resilience to climate change
Facilitating better information-sharing : open data helps improve cities and urban infrastructure; improves disaster resilience; allows essential resources to be distributed effectively in emergencies.
In NZ the new Social Investment Unit is using cross-government data to better identify at-risk children & design appropriate support & services to improve their lives
HERE Maps is one of the 3 largest digital map providers in the world (the others are Google Maps & Tom-Tom)
They are building a world roading map in preparation for driverless cars
Images, GPS coordinates & LiDAR scans are mapping our roads, including in NZ
So where does open data come in? Open data enrichens the map data with relevant information about traffic, parking, shops, hotels and so on – all things that are needed when using a digital map or riding around in a driverless car
BlindSquare is a smartphone app that allows blind & visibly impaired people to navigate a city
Originating in Helsinki, the app originally took open data on public transport & services, & combined it with social networking app Foursquare, & Open Street Map
It describes the environment, and announces points of interest & intersections as a person travels around the city
The product now works in dozens of countries and languages, including NZ where the Blind Foundation uses it
Thundermaps
ThunderMaps is a mobile hazard and incident reporting app, with the goal of making workplaces safer
Users automatically receive alerts for hazards and incidents for areas of their choice eg. their home, their workplace, school areas
They can receive information about police call-out locations, fire alerts, earthquakes, rainfall or traffic accident
‘Real-time’ reporting of hazards reduces the occurrence of related incidents, immediately improves safety, & provide quick analysis and elimination of hazards
It also means time & cost savings are made as mobile hazard reporting can easily be integrated into business processes
RentSquare
A UK start-up which connects landlords and tenants online, without the need for letting agencies
Using open data, RentSquare uses a calculator that works out the sweet spot for rents for every address in the UK
It combines open data from the Land Registry, with local authority data on housing benefit and rent levels in London, as well as Bank of England economic data
The High 5s application is a landmark initiative from the African Development Bank
The goal is to accelerate Africa’s development over the next 10 years
High 5 uses open data to track 5 priority areas for development – light up & power Africa; feed Africa; integrate Africa; industrialise Africa; and improve quality of life
The application tracks each countries progress again the priority areas & provides visibility across the relevant areas
This demonstrates transparency & accountability
Open data is having a huge impact on emergency responsiveness in natural disasters
Both after the Nepal earthquake last year & the Ecuador earthquake this year, organisations around the world started immediately releasing imagery & crowd-sourced data to help the disaster response
Several international organisations & crowd-sourced efforts began producing & sharing data about the earthquake’s impacts
Open data provides useful information to understand the context of the affected cities and towns before the earthquakes
This data is used during the response & recovery phases to understand the affected population & infrastructure eg. demographic information provides insight into the affected population, identifying needs around age & gender distribution.
Benefits: facilitates interdisciplinary research, pushes the boundaries of discovery, using data already collected elsewhere
We are now talking about ‘when’ not ‘if’ the majority of academic outputs lives somewhere on the web
Academics, tertiary institutions, libraries & publishing platforms all need to fundamentally change how they work:
Academics – need to think about collection of data for multiple purposes & eventual opening & sharing of their data
Tertiary institutions – funders are starting to ask to see the outputs of what they’ve funded
Libraries – digital content is now core business for them
Publishing platforms – rather than sitting behind subscriptions, users are going to expect open digital content
Data.govt.nz is New Zealand’s open data discovery portal which has over 4,300 datasets
It brings together openly available, openly licensed datasets opened up by organisations across government with entrepreneurs, citizens and government itself using & building value on top of the raw data
Lots of organisations can list on data.govt.nz including universities (it’s not only for central government)
Data.govt.nz also provides guidance, case studies and e-learning to show the impact open data is making
Within the next few months, data.govt.nz will be launching it’s new data catalogue (currently in beta) and continuous improvement programme
They would love to hear your feedback on what features you’d like to see on data.govt.nz (contact them at [email_address] ).
Data.govt.nz is New Zealand’s open data discovery portal which has over 4,300 datasets
It brings together openly available, openly licensed datasets opened up by organisations across government with entrepreneurs, citizens and government itself using & building value on top of the raw data
Lots of organisations can list on data.govt.nz including universities (it’s not only for central government)
Data.govt.nz also provides guidance, case studies and e-learning to show the impact open data is making
Within the next few months, data.govt.nz will be launching it’s new data catalogue (currently in beta) and continuous improvement programme
They would love to hear your feedback on what features you’d like to see on data.govt.nz (contact them at [email_address] ).
Figure.nz pulls together data from the NZ public & private sectors & academic data in one place, & makes it easy for people to see in a visualised form
Explore the population by age group, mobile connections, exports to China or the types of devices used to access the internet
Click on the relevant link to download the dataset itself and do your own analysis
GovHack is an Australian hackathon run over the weekend of 28-20 July (Friday evening – Sunday evening)
What is a hackathon? – it’s a combination of ‘hack’ & ‘marathon’
GovHack is essentially a weekend of teams coming together to use data to tell a story
It is run in 9 locations around NZ plus more in Australia
The multi-skilled teams mean you don’t need to be data savvy
Instead bring your creative, strategic, planning, visualising, leadership skills
It’s totally free & everything is provided – just bring your device
