WEBVTT 00:00:19.880 --> 00:00:24.600 Tom Steinberg: Open Government Data is any information the Government collects, by and large for its own purposes, 00:00:24.600 --> 00:00:28.240 that it then makes available for other people to use for their purposes. 00:00:28.240 --> 00:00:30.080 Rufus Pollock: It’s government data that’s Open 00:00:30.080 --> 00:00:34.440 and Open means free for anyone to use, re-use and redistribute. 00:00:34.440 --> 00:00:40.101 Aine McGuire: The Open Data Movement is a way of transforming the relationship between the citizen and government 00:00:40.101 --> 00:00:42.080 such that everyone knows what’s going on 00:00:42.080 --> 00:00:43.746 and if everyone knows what’s going on 00:00:43.746 --> 00:00:48.160 then it will become much more easy for both parties to participate more fairly in society. 00:00:48.160 --> 00:00:53.058 Chris Taggart: Our lives are increasingly governed by data, in fact our lives increasingly are data. 00:00:53.058 --> 00:00:57.520 Given that, not to be able to look at the information about us, 00:00:57.520 --> 00:01:00.320 where we live, who represents us, 00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:04.760 companies that do business with the government and so on 00:01:04.760 --> 00:01:07.560 starts to undermine democracy. 00:01:07.560 --> 00:01:10.264 Rob McKinnon: It is much broader than just government. 00:01:10.264 --> 00:01:13.720 Government is actually just one participant in our society. 00:01:13.720 --> 00:01:19.761 What we are seeing happening is actually the cusp of a major social change, a global social change. 00:01:19.761 --> 00:01:24.200 Together, we have the ability to transform the way society works. 00:01:24.200 --> 00:01:30.960 Globally, we are bringing together, through sites such as Wikipedia or collections of structured data, 00:01:30.960 --> 00:01:36.160 a big global overview of how society works and how we organise ourselves. 00:01:36.160 --> 00:01:41.727 So, we’re just at the beginning of a major change in the way we operate... 00:01:41.727 --> 00:01:45.920 Rufus Pollock: There are three ways in which Open Government Data can make the world a better place. 00:01:45.920 --> 00:01:52.720 Number one: it enables companies, individuals, not-for-profits 00:01:52.720 --> 00:01:57.480 to go and build interesting, useful, valuable applications and services. 00:01:57.480 --> 00:02:02.080 Number two, I think it’s about democracy, it’s about the participating in government, it’s about transparency, 00:02:02.080 --> 00:02:05.620 allowing us to see what our government is doing. 00:02:05.620 --> 00:02:08.592 And number three: I guess is why not? 00:02:08.592 --> 00:02:12.120 It is basically costless to open up government data, 00:02:12.120 --> 00:02:19.095 so why not open up the data that is already there and is already being collected. 00:02:27.880 --> 00:02:31.301 Tom Steinberg: Open Data is important for several different reasons 00:02:31.301 --> 00:02:34.200 and none of them is more important than the other. 00:02:34.200 --> 00:02:38.221 We have the possibility of generating economic value, 00:02:38.221 --> 00:02:42.865 which is at the forefront of many people’s minds in hard times like these. 00:02:42.865 --> 00:02:45.256 The creation of more jobs and more companies, 00:02:45.256 --> 00:02:47.960 and more profitable companies to generate more tax revenue. 00:02:48.137 --> 00:02:52.862 That's obviously a big thing about the potential power of open data. 00:02:52.924 --> 00:03:00.349 There is also the classic old fashioned issue of making data open and available so that we can see potential corruption 00:03:00.349 --> 00:03:07.357 and misuse of public money and practices that are unfair or illegal and nothing to do with money but are hidden in some way. 00:03:07.387 --> 00:03:11.277 Ton Zijlstra: You can expect people to start businesses by adding value to data, 00:03:11.277 --> 00:03:14.746 taking that data and using it for a certain application. 00:03:14.746 --> 00:03:16.800 It’s also about transparency 00:03:16.800 --> 00:03:21.944 but it’s also about people empowering themselves to be better able to make decisions about their own lives 00:03:21.944 --> 00:03:26.320 based on information that wasn’t available before. 00:03:26.320 --> 00:03:32.280 And it’s also about making the organisations which create this data more efficient and effective themselves. 00:03:32.280 --> 00:03:36.058 Rufus Pollock: For example we do a project called wheredoesmymoneygo.org 00:03:36.105 --> 00:03:39.440 to help show you where your tax money goes, which I think is a really important part. 00:03:39.440 --> 00:03:47.000 I think it would be interesting to know, ‘this is the biggest contribution I make to the state - where is this money going?’ 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:52.480 Without open data in government, I can’t answer that question. 00:04:02.680 --> 00:04:07.873 David Eaves: We use Federal Pollution data and we mash it up into a map with electoral data 00:04:07.873 --> 00:04:12.099 to show you near your postal code or in any area you care about 00:04:12.099 --> 00:04:16.957 what facilities are near you and how they pollute and what they pollute and whose riding they are in. 00:04:16.957 --> 00:04:20.368 So you can begin to examine what the pollution levels around you are like. 00:04:20.368 --> 00:04:27.285 Tom Steinberg: MySociety builds various different civic and social websites and look after them. 00:04:27.285 --> 00:04:32.520 And by civic and social website I mean services that do things like tell you: 00:04:32.520 --> 00:04:38.960 ‘who is my politician?’ ‘how do I write to them?’ ‘what do they say in parliament?’, ‘how do they vote?’, ‘what do they do with the money they get?’ 00:04:38.960 --> 00:04:41.147 - that’s on the democratic side. 00:04:41.147 --> 00:04:45.745 On the civic side we build services that say: ‘how do I get problems on my street fixed?’ 00:04:45.745 --> 00:04:48.600 ‘how do i get information that I need to out of the government?’ 00:04:48.600 --> 00:04:55.440 And soon ‘how do I get my transport problems fixed?’, which is forthcoming... 00:04:55.440 --> 00:04:57.982 David Eaves: In Vancouver the garbage schedule is very dynamic... 00:04:57.982 --> 00:05:02.240 it changes on a regular basis and people always forget when to take their garbage out. 00:05:02.240 --> 00:05:04.530 And so now they can just go to a site and they can register 00:05:04.530 --> 00:05:08.106 and we’ll send them an email that says “Tomorrow is your garbage day”. 00:05:08.106 --> 00:05:12.982 It’s the type of application that the ordinary citizen wraps their head around very quickly, 00:05:12.982 --> 00:05:14.700 it delivers immediate use to them. 00:05:14.700 --> 00:05:19.530 And so when people see VanTrash, they say, "so is this part of what Open Data is about?" 00:05:19.530 --> 00:05:23.474 And we say, “Yes” and they say, “I want more of this in my life” 00:05:30.120 --> 00:05:31.800 Richard Cyganiak: On the level of the European Union, 00:05:31.800 --> 00:05:37.160 it would be really interesting if we could actually get all of this data into a single place 00:05:37.160 --> 00:05:42.517 so that we can search across the countries and actually start to compare things across countries. 00:05:53.240 --> 00:05:56.360 Jack Thurston: What we are trying to do with Farmsubsidy.org 00:05:56.360 --> 00:06:02.115 is connect all the different government disclosures into one single data centre. 00:06:02.115 --> 00:06:06.527 So that citizens can go online and find out what is going on not only in their country 00:06:06.527 --> 00:06:13.725 but in other countries and they can make comparisons about how much farms get in one part of the EU compared to another, 00:06:13.725 --> 00:06:15.880 how much citizens put in to the policy, 00:06:15.880 --> 00:06:20.080 how much it costs them if they are in one country as opposed to another country. 00:06:20.080 --> 00:06:27.355 This is the seeds of a pan-European debate that ought to be there, 00:06:27.355 --> 00:06:31.065 seeing as we have a pan-European policy. 00:06:35.680 --> 00:06:43.080 Erik Swanson: One of my favourite examples of how World Bank Data has been reused occurred very soon after we opened up the database. 00:06:43.080 --> 00:06:48.600 We got a message back from a group that had simply taken our entire database 00:06:48.600 --> 00:06:51.992 and analysed where all the gaps were in the data 00:06:51.992 --> 00:06:58.424 and then produced maps showing country by country, indicator by indicator, year by year 00:06:58.424 --> 00:07:01.744 where the gaps were in the data. 00:07:01.744 --> 00:07:05.480 It didn’t tell us anything that we didn’t already know 00:07:05.480 --> 00:07:09.920 but it told it to us in a way we hadn’t seen before 00:07:09.920 --> 00:07:13.656 and of course it made it public for everyone else to look at as well. 00:07:13.656 --> 00:07:15.440 Karin Christiansen: We are at the point where we need the data released 00:07:15.440 --> 00:07:20.240 and we need a standard for that data to come out so that we can map it and compare it. 00:07:20.240 --> 00:07:23.240 Because what’s needed in Uganda, in Afganistan 00:07:23.240 --> 00:07:27.033 is not just knowing what DFID is doing with UK money, 00:07:27.033 --> 00:07:30.815 what American money is doing, but about how this all fits together. 00:07:30.815 --> 00:07:35.120 Simon Parrish: We are working on an initiative called the International Aid Transparency Initiative 00:07:35.120 --> 00:07:44.680 which is about developing standards for how donors involved in government should be transparent about the aid that they give. 00:07:44.680 --> 00:07:48.695 Both to be accountable to the citizens and taxpayers in their own countries 00:07:48.695 --> 00:07:52.294 but also to a variety of stakeholders in the developing countries 00:07:52.294 --> 00:07:57.425 from governments of those countries, to civil society organisations, to parliamentarians 00:07:57.425 --> 00:08:02.209 who all want better information about the money that is coming into their country. 00:08:02.209 --> 00:08:07.920 The openness and availability of this information has the potential to radically change 00:08:07.920 --> 00:08:12.640 the way in which AID money is spent and the effectiveness with which aid money is spent. 00:08:12.640 --> 00:08:18.138 The importance is on the openness of that data so that it could be reused by different groups in different ways 00:08:18.138 --> 00:08:22.120 to make it accessible for different groups in a way that meets their own specific needs. 00:08:22.120 --> 00:08:26.440 Erik Swanson: Some of Hans Rosling’s bubble charts, 00:08:26.440 --> 00:08:33.280 the Gapminder software in which he illustrates the progress of countries over time, 00:08:33.280 --> 00:08:37.628 using charts that are animated and move... 00:08:48.520 --> 00:08:53.548 Even before our data became available, Hans was using it in his Gapminder charts 00:08:53.548 --> 00:09:03.080 and it has been terribly effective in raising awareness of development issues. 00:09:03.080 --> 00:09:07.280 Tom Steinberg: How can you persuade governments that maybe aren’t interested in Open Data 00:09:07.280 --> 00:09:12.040 that it is worth spending their time and money and effort to pay any attention? 00:09:12.040 --> 00:09:16.095 I think that demonstration is really the key here. 00:09:16.095 --> 00:09:20.600 Demonstration of services that are good, that are useful... 00:09:20.600 --> 00:09:28.440 and in particular services that are easy to explain, that offer very obvious value and general benefit as opposed to very niche benefit... 00:09:28.440 --> 00:09:29.469 David Eaves: We have three goals. 00:09:29.469 --> 00:09:35.680 The first is: let’s help build community around open data in as many cities as want it all around the world. 00:09:35.680 --> 00:09:41.660 Second, let’s give a place where local politicians and government officials can come meet people that care about this, 00:09:41.660 --> 00:09:47.047 meet people who are engaging on it and also see all of the cool things that are going on around the world 00:09:47.047 --> 00:09:50.042 and see how much is actually going on and that others are doing it and that they can do it too. 00:09:50.042 --> 00:09:56.040 Then the third is, let’s actually build something. 00:09:56.040 --> 00:09:58.560 Let’s try and get each community to build something 00:09:58.560 --> 00:10:05.000 because nothing gets people understanding why open data matters more than when they see a really profound visualisation 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:07.960 that allows them to understand their community in a way they never had before. 00:10:07.960 --> 00:10:11.440 Jack Thurston: Our job is to remind people how important it is 00:10:11.440 --> 00:10:15.240 that they have access to data about what it is their government does, 00:10:15.240 --> 00:10:22.720 whether that is getting journalists to write stories, helping NGOs to build their campaigns around data 00:10:22.720 --> 00:10:28.750 or just creating web apps for ordinary citizens to go online and find out about what’s going on. 00:10:28.750 --> 00:10:35.120 We need to be able to demonstrate that a world in which government data is open is better than a world in which it is closed. 00:10:35.120 --> 00:10:40.389 Rufus Pollock: Normally the best things to come out of a new technology are ones that are not thought of. 00:10:40.389 --> 00:10:49.720 Imagine electricity, in the 1820’s when Faraday was demonstrating electricity to Gladstone at the Royal Society. 00:10:49.720 --> 00:10:52.160 Gladstone says to Faraday, 00:10:52.160 --> 00:10:55.708 “Yeah it’s very neat, you can make frogs’ legs twitch but what’s the point of electricity?” 00:10:55.708 --> 00:10:57.891 Faraday says back to Gladstone, 00:10:57.891 --> 00:10:59.320 “Well what’s the point of a baby? ... 00:10:59.320 --> 00:11:01.304 It’s going to grow into something...” 00:11:01.304 --> 00:11:05.000 And I think the point here about open data is that we are living in an information age, 00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:11.637 an information society - data and information are the key infrastructure of that world. 00:11:11.637 --> 00:11:16.800 Ton Zijlstra: If you look at the way that humans solve problems we usually try to jump to easy solutions 00:11:16.800 --> 00:11:18.975 even if they are hard and complex problems. 00:11:18.975 --> 00:11:26.960 So I think we need to use the data that we hold about our lives and our environment as a way to find 00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:31.917 less easy but workable answers to the hard questions that we face.