Open Data
LIFT 2012, Geneva
Rufus Pollock
@rufuspollock[.org] – @okfn[.org]
Licensed under cc-by v3.0 (any jurisdiction)
The Open Knowledge Foundation
Community-based not-for-profit founded in 2004
We have projects and collaborations around the world and are especially active in Europe
We build tools and communities to create, use and share open knowledge - content and data that everyone can use, share and build on.
Sumer, Mesopotamia, 5000 years ago
The UK Census (1801)
The Hollerith Tabulator (US 1890 Census)
An IBM (1960s)
Today We Find Ourselves in the Midst of a Revolution
Driven by
Info Complexity
[Necessity]
+
Info Tech
[Opportunity]
We are Innovating
Opening Up
Information
Government is Opening up Data
Open Gov Initiatives Around the World. 3y ago ~ 0. Now UK, US, Finland, Kenya, Netherlands, ...
Communities are Opening Up Data
Like OpenStreetMap who have a built a map of the world from the bottom up
Open Data: What is It?
What does Open Mean?
"A piece of data is open if anyone is free to use, reuse and redistribute it - subject only, at most, to a requirement to attribute or share-alike."
http://opendefinition.org/
Anyone means Anyone!
(So no restrictions on commercial use etc)
What Kind of Data?
Transport, Geodata, Statistics, Electoral-Legal ...
Key point: Non-Personal Data!
(E.g. Train times, station locations, spending breakdowns, national laws ...)
Why?
A Story
(About Medicine Gone Wrong)
To many eyes all anomalies are noticeable
To many eyes all bugs are shallow
Apps and Services
But Why Open?
The Challenge
and
the Opportunity
Challenge: Exploding Info Complexity
In 1820s all UK bank clearing done in a single room in London once a day. Today, billions of transactions a minute.
=> componentization to divide and conquer complexity
Opportunity: Info Technology
Today a smart phone has as much computing power as the system for the Apollo moon landings. 1TB of storage is around $100, in 1994 this would have cost ~ $400,000.
=> Mass participation in information access, processing and production. Decentralization.
Claim: Openness is Key
Open Data Scales
(And Closed Data Doesn't!)
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|
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| We're Weaving Data Together |
To Scale We Need to Componentize |
But We Need to Put Humpty-Dumpty Together Again - Not Possible if Closed |
Credits
Images
lego.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oskay/265899811/
humpty_dumpty.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aussiegall/298669543/
woven_ball.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/exfordy/387876530/sizes/s/
sim_city_airport.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42183741@N05/3890767674/in/photostream/
thomas_jefferson.jpg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rembrandt_Peale-Thomas_Jefferson.jpg
stick_figure_male.png: http://www.openclipart.org/detail/15036
stick_figure_female.png: http://www.openclipart.org/detail/15040
city_icon.png: http://www.openclipart.org/detail/20145
city_icon.png: http://www.openclipart.org/detail/20145
sumer-ur-pot.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seriykotik/122518602/
hollerith-tabulator.gif: http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/census-tabulator.html (orig from IBM)
ibm-machine-city-hall.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_virginia/2898506631/
census-1801-example.jpg: http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~alan/family/images/census/1801_example.jpg
itoworld-openstreetmap-2009.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterito/3054501076/
