Browsing All Posts filed under »Open Data«

Smart Cities vs. Smart Communities: Empowering Citizens not Market Economics

November 6, 2014

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So "Smart Cities" particularly in Less Developed Countries are ways of turning urban environments into gold mines for consultants, hardware and software companies and redoing the city in the image and for the benefit of its most prosperous and well-serviced inhabitants and in the meantime transferring additional resources and benefits from the poor to the rich.

Should “Open Government Data” be a Product or a Service (and why does it matter?)

February 3, 2013

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But why shouldn't we think of "open data" as a "service" where the open data rather than being characterized by its "thingness" or its unchangeable quality as a "product", can be understood as an on-going interactive and iterative process of co-creation between the data supplier and the end-user; where the outcome is as much determined by the needs and interests of the user as by the resources and pre-existing expectations of the data provider.

Does “Inclusion” Matter for Open Government? (The Answer Is, Very Much Indeed!)

April 18, 2012

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I am currently in Brasilia at a truly remarkable event--the inaugural meeting of the Open Government Partnership.

Two Worlds of Open Government Data: Getting the Lowdown on Public Toilets in Chennai and Other Matters

April 10, 2012

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There is it appears, two worlds of "Open Government Data"--one the world of smart phones, and Ipads, of apps and upscale "demographics" of interest to sponsors like Proctor and Gamble; and the contrasting world of slum dwellers without access to sanitation, of populations subject to systematic mal-and even corrupt administration --worlds where app providers and the folks who make the OGD available to them go public with multi-million dollar IPO's and ones where those with the courage to pursue public information may be putting their lives at risk.

The Data Divide: Some Positive Developments

July 19, 2011

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What I find so positive about this is that the DoL is taking the issue of a potential Data Divide seriously and is devoting some of its development resources to responding by providing tools that those with more limited technical experience can use to design applications for using DoL data.

A Data Divide? Data “Haves” and “Have Nots” and Open (Government) Data

July 11, 2011

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The idea of a possible parallel “data divide” between those who have access and the opportunity to make effective use of data and particularly “open data” and those who do not, began to occur to me. I was attending several planning/recruitment events for the Open Data “movement” here in Vancouver and the socio-demographics and some of the underlying political assumptions seemed to be somewhat at odds with the expressed advocacy position of “data for all”.

“Open”–“Necessary” but not “Sufficient”

July 6, 2011

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My somewhat off the cuff comments/reflections on the recent OKCon(ference), the annual event of the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) seems to have caused a bit of a stir among certain of the more senior members of the latter group. The result has been a series of comments on my original blog post and now a blogpost on a separate blog by Peter Murray-Rust an OKF Board Member, taking considerable issue with my comments.