Open Data development in the City of Edinburgh Council

Sally Kerr19 June 2012

2

Open Data use with the City of Edinburgh Council

• Scottish picture• Innovation in Edinburgh• Edinburgh Council – work to date• Our website and API• Plans for the future

3

Local Government picture

4

Local Authorities in Scotland

5

Aberdeen case study

• First Scottish authority to launch open data,• First Scottish Authority to launch Linked Data

triple-store,• Worked with Scottish Government on making data

from www.tellmescotland.gov.uk open • Just been awarded £25,000 by NESTA to

create an open data-based safe winter travel with our neighbours Aberdeenshire Council.

6

Scottish Digital Participation Group - Workstreams

• Smart Working: Anywhere Working is a group initiative to show you how you can save time, money and the environment through remote working.

• Health/Older People: Creation of a regional co-production model for those working with older people and driving digital participation.

• Technology in Education: Aim to enhance digital skills across the country.

• Youth Employment: Glasgow based youth unemployment programme.

7

Innovation in Edinburgh

• Universities – Edinburgh University• Open Innovation and Turing Festival• NESTA - supporting innovation

8

School of Informatics: Key Facts

Lead the UK in research According to the UK RAE we have 69% more top rated research than nearest competitor (10% of all UK “world leading” research).

The largest research centre of our sort in Europe 100 Academic staff 150 Postdoc researchers 250 PhD students 200 Masters level students 250 1st year undergraduates

Run a UK-leading entrepreneurialism programme Edinburgh holds UK record for number of university spinoff companies in last 10 years; Informatics alone comes 4th in UK.

9

QuantumcomputationAlgorithms &

complexity

Softwareengineering

Algebra, games& concurrency

Verification &security

Systemsmodelling

Databases

Computervision

Graphics andanimation

Robotics

Multi-agent systemsand planning

Automatedreasoning &knowledgeengineering

Bioinformatics

Machinelearning

Neuro-informatics

Wirelesssensornetworks

Computersystemsarchitecture

Cognitivemodelling

Semantics &discourse

Multimodalinteraction

informationextraction

Large scalenaturallanguageprocessing

Speech synthesisand recognition

Data-intensiveresearch

Their research landscape

10

University of Edinburgh resources

• University of Edinburgh Open Data (http://data.inf.ed.ac.uk/)

• http://edina.ac.uk/• https://datalib.edina.ac.uk/• http://unlock.edina.ac.uk

11

Open Innovationhttp://openinnovationproject.co.uk/dev/index.php/home

12

Open Data Innovation

• Create opportunities for open data across business, academia and communities

• Build networks and champions for open data across NW Europe

• Launch new businesses, products and services utilising open data

12

13

Open Challenges

• Create challenge networks and platforms to drive innovation

• Challenges for social benefit• Business Challenges• Government data innovation for social change

13

14

Turing festival –23to25 Aug2012

• brings together the digital technology and the web into the world's largest arts and creative gathering in a celebration of digital culture and creativity

• Encourages hack events and challenges• Builds partnerships for technical innovation

15

Support through Nesta…

• 5 Local Authorities supported through Nesta’s ‘Make it Local’ programme to create open data sites - Edinburgh + Aberdeen/Aberdeenshire, Glasgow and Orkney- useful local services for parks/travel in snow conditions and heritage

• Sites to be ready by Autumn, all data uploaded to data.gov and the code open source for replicability

• ‘Destination Local’- a hyper-local media pilot across the UK to test the business model of postcode based content on mobile devices. 10 projects to be announced June 28th

16

Problems with selling Open Data

What data have you got? Let me see it!

I’ll make it do great stuff!

Prove it!

Release it and I’ll prove it!

Prove it and we will release it!

17

Issues to be addressed

• Obtaining the understanding and buy-in from our management and from nationalgovernment

• Selling the benefits• Justifying use of resources - employee’s time ( = ££ )• Overcoming business silos as well as DB silos• Breaking down technical barriers – some data sets

easier than others to liberate• Challenging natural defensiveness

18

What are the benefits?

• Improved internal sharing as well as external• Simplify data management – single version of the

information• Many eyes to spot errors and anomalies• Reputational impact: improved perception of

transparency & improved engagement• Social & economic value• People will do better, cleverer and more valuable

stuff than we can given our slender resources• Cut FOI requests – point to the data

19

What the Council is doing?

• Networking with businesses, universities and developers

• Internally raising awareness and working towards a strategy

• Building open data application knowledge• Scoping potential projects• Developing case studies

20

NESTA Making it Local Scotland

• Edinburgh Council was successful in obtaining funding for this

• Currently developing a parks and green spaces service

• Waiting to hear on further NESTA bid• Using our API key for the current project and looking

to open this up

21

API demo

22

What we want to do next

• Deliver the NESTA Project• Deliver prototype with School of Informatics• Use these projects to achieve buy-in• Host challenge events to encourage data sharing• Work with partners to develop innovative approaches

to service delivery• Work towards an open data strategy for the Council

and the City

23

Aspiration….

24

Questions?

Sally Kerr The City of Edinburgh Council

Web Manager0131 529 4899@WeeBletherer

sally.kerr@edinburgh.gov.ukPS. On leave until 5 July if you want to chat!