[euopendata] Update on pan-European open data competition

Mon Mar 14 22:53:51 UTC 2011

Hi all,

Following is an update on the pan-European 'Open Data Challenge'
competition [1]. The Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) and the Open
Forum Academy (OFA) are leading the organisation of the competition
under the auspices of the Share PSI initiative [2]. Updates on
progress will be sent to both the existing 'euopendata' list and the
new Share PSI list.

First of all: why bother? From my point of view there are three main
reasons why this is worth doing:

  (i) to generate momentum for open data in Europe - encouraging more
public bodies and more national governments to consider opening up
their data
  (ii) to strengthen the community of people interested in open data
in Europe - e.g. connecting the dots between people in different
places so we can make better applications and services, share
expertise and experiences, and so on
  (iii) to engage new people - e.g. data literate citizens, data
journalists, designers and so on

What next? Here is the rough roadmap:

  * Until late March: soliciting for partners/sponsors
  * Early April: competition opens
  * Early June: competition closes
  * Mid June: winners will be announced in Brussels

As it says above, we are openly soliciting for input from
parters/sponsors for this initiative. In particular we are looking
for:

  * local contacts - to help with translating the competition website,
liaising with local entrants, and evangelising about the competition
in relevant local communities
  * local, regional and national public bodies - to contribute data
and to show support for the competition from governments around Europe
  * media partners - to help show support for the competition, and to
promote it in the country where they are based
  * sponsors - to contribute towards the prizes

The competition will have three main strands:

  * Ideas – Anyone can suggest an idea for projects which reuse public
information to do something interesting or useful. Applications are
submitted in the form of a microshort video and short supporting text.
  * Applications – Teams of developers can submit working applications
which reuse public information. Applications must be made available
under an open source license, and teams must include representation
from at least two European member states.
  * Visualisations – Designers, artists and others can submit
interesting or insightful visual representations of public
information.

Here are our immediate to do items:

  * Solicit for input from local contacts, public bodies, media
partners and sponsors - I am coordinating this at the moment so if you
have any ideas or you'd like more information, please contact me!
  * Finalise judges
  * Prepare website for launch - we've registered
opendatachallenge.org, and need to put together a basic website that
explains the idea, and that allows people to enter

Very exciting to (finally!) have the ball rolling on this. :-)

All the best,

Jonathan

[1] For more information see the following (temporary) URL:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3952743/OKF/opendatachallenge.pdf

[2] For anyone who hasn't yet seen this, Share PSI aims to bring
together a wide range of stakeholders who are interested in seeing
European public sector information (PSI) shared more effectively. This
will feed directly into the Digital Assembly event in June. Membership
is open to European organisations, and in the first instance involves
adding your logo to the Share PSI website.

-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://blog.okfn.org

http://twitter.com/jwyg
http://identi.ca/jwyg