Open Data

Data
Sectors	Data
Contact	Irene Ng
Topics	Artificial Intelligence Data Sovereignty Digital Twins Geographic Location Systems Intelligence Augmentation Knowledge Management Mobile Device and Communications Networks Open Data Open Source Predictive Modeling Sensor Technology Software Development Methods Standards and Interfaces
Activities Applying Open Data to inform future Smart City Design In order for cities and design professionals to have a more transparent understanding of the Climate Change impacts of potential building development, they must have a tool that provides quick and facile real time calculation linked to the weather data and utility information of an area, along with the potential energy usage. Between March 2016 and 2017: We would continue the development of our resource impact estimation tool, PlanIT Impact, to create design specific estimations that can be adjusted in an immersive, 3D digital space for optimal iteration and analysis. We would link to local utility data to estimate ROI, creating links with energy usage and green house gas impact, as this will help to inform (and shed light on possible gaps for incentives). We would apply this platform to the design and projected energy, water usage and storm water impact on a municipal building project as a prototype and replicable model of how resource impact projection affects actual usage. As an end user of Open Data and Smart City technologies, this also allows the City to showcase and realize the value of this data to their larger constituency. Building an Open Data Ecosystem The "Building an Open Data Ecosystem" project in Leeds, United Kingdom aims to foster collaboration and innovation through the development of an open data ecosystem in the city. CIVIC Data Platform CIVIC is an open data platform to democratize public information and drive meaningful engagement through neutral, nonpartisan analytics. It's built entirely by multidisciplinary teams of volunteer coders, designers and domain experts using open source technology. CheckD Data Wallet: Eat2Give The EAT2GIVE project in Subang Jaya, Malaysia, leverages the CheckD Data Wallet to unite food lovers, local businesses, and charities in a unique fundraising initiative. By claiming the EAT2GIVE campaign badge on their CheckD wallets, food enthusiasts can support local causes every time they purchase designated menu items at participating food merchants, who pledge RM3 per validation to charity. This innovative campaign promotes community engagement and philanthropy while maintaining user privacy, enabling merchants to boost foot traffic cost-effectively, and providing organizers with seamless validation and transparent reporting. Driven by a partnership between Dataswyft, SubangFood, and TheBFG.team, EAT2GIVE fosters a culture of doing good through commerce, connecting residents and businesses in a shared purpose to strengthen the Subang Jaya community. City Insight Platform- Communities in Context Using data from the city, state and federal level Vizalytics will create a City Insight Platform. This will provide users with a real-time view of what is happening in a neighborhood, and can be refined by choosing which lens to view- from socio-economic indices, business climate, transportation, infrastructure, quality of life and more. Data Equity for Main Street - Bring Open Data to Communities through Public Libraries The Data Equity for Main Street Project is a Data Literacy and Civic Tech project that has aimed to engage community members in open data and empower them to participate in open data projects. By engaging in a curriculum that is meant for those who want to learn about and give feedback on open data, rather than just publish open data, participants improve their digital (data) literacy skills and be exposed to opportunities to use open data to inform community issues or answer individual questions. The project is moving into a new phase, from a in-class online model, to an online, interactive model. We seek to identify the impact of this new online, interactive model. Data.gov Data.gov is a website operated by the U.S. federal government that provides access to datasets and other resources related to government activities and policies. It is intended to make government data more easily accessible to the public, with the goal of increasing transparency and enabling citizens to better understand and engage with their government. Data.gov offers a wide variety of data sets and resources, including data on topics such as agriculture, education, energy, finance, health, and more. The website also includes tools and resources for developers, such as APIs and code libraries, to help people use the data in creative and innovative ways. GIS Resources from the Oregon Department of Forestry Oregon Department of Forestry's GIS Data is maintained by the Information Technology Department's GIS Unit. Hub of All Things The Hub of All Things (HAT) Microserver is a pioneering digital infrastructure that enables individuals, businesses, and organizations to take control of their personal data through self-sovereign data management. Built on over $50 million of UK research, the HAT Microserver separates data storage from application services, granting users full legal ownership of their data, even if it was generated by external entities like banks or hospitals. This technology transforms personal data into a new asset class known as "self-sovereign data," which retains intellectual property (IP) rights for the data producers, allowing them to safely and securely create value from it. Hosted by Dataswyft, the HAT Microserver is cloud-native, portable, and open-source, with pending patents for its deployment and protocols for data governance, offering a more secure, efficient, and governed approach to managing personal and organizational data in a decentralized environment. I3 Consortium Action Cluster The I3 project is creating a tool that will allow independent device owners to directly manage how the data streams from their IOT devices are delivered to applications. Opensource Project software includes support for privacy, trust, and incentive management. Requirements and proof-of-concepts complete. Consortium management structure in process. Demonstration systems in process. R1.0 beta software in design. Maryland Digital ID Integration Project The Maryland Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Administration (MDOT MVA) has announced the availability of Maryland Mobile ID in Samsung Wallet, making Maryland the second state in the U.S. to offer digital licenses on this platform. This initiative allows Marylanders to securely verify their identity at select TSA PreCheck airport checkpoints, including Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. With this launch, Maryland becomes the first state to provide digital ID integration across Samsung Wallet, Apple Wallet, and Google Wallet. More than 200,000 Maryland residents have already adopted digital IDs since their introduction in 2022. Maryland Mobile ID serves as a secure and convenient companion to physical IDs, emphasizing privacy and safety with robust hardware and software security measures. For details on setup and usage, visit the MVA website. Neighborhood Data for Social Change The Neighborhood Data for Social Change (NDSC) platform is a free, publicly available online resource for civic actors to learn about their communities. NextGraph NextGraph is an innovative approach to building a truly decentralized internet, addressing critical issues like privacy, digital sovereignty, interoperability, and security. By merging peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, Semantic Web technologies (RDF, linked data), and Conflict-Free Replicated Data Types (CRDTs), NextGraph overcomes the limitations of centralization and federated systems. Unlike traditional web infrastructures dominated by centralized corporations or federated models with inherent data ownership challenges, NextGraph emphasizes local-first software and end-to-end encryption, ensuring data portability, user control, and privacy. The platform envisions a decentralized, efficient ecosystem where users and developers benefit from resilience, freedom, and seamless functionality without relying on central servers or monolithic databases. Its alpha release demonstrates the potential of this paradigm, and ongoing efforts focus on empowering developers with tools to build robust applications in this next-generation internet framework. NextGraph represents a significant step toward fulfilling the promise of the Semantic Web as a decentralized, privacy-first network. Open Data STREAMS This project involves an evaluation framework for open datasets published by the City of Portland. The goal is to create a data analysis tool which provides quality assurance for datasets made available between bureaus and to the public. Open Wi-Fi Maps and Lists (by US state) States are compiling lists of open Wi-Fi access points for residents who do not have home broadband access. While accessing these sites may be in violation of social distancing and shelter-in-place directives, some people may choose to use this option. Open Wi-Fi SSIDs are potentially a security risk to users. Use of VPNs and secure website is highly recommended. OpenGrid OpenGrid is an interactive, map-based platform for exploring open data sets in an easy-to-use, map-based interface. OpenGrid enables municipalities to offer residents, businesses, and communities a better way to interact with public data. Users can perform advanced queries to filter data as well as search within custom boundaries or based on the user's location. Oregon Data Catalog The Oregon Data Catalog is a platform for managing and publishing data sets that are relevant to the state of Oregon in the United States. The platform is based on CKAN, which is a free and open-source software platform for managing and publishing data. PortlandMaps - Open Data PortlandMaps delivers site-specific property information, neighborhood crime statistics, aerial photos, school information, and tons of additional map data for the City of Portland and beyond. The Beckn Protocol The Beckn Protocol is an open, decentralized standard designed to enable seamless interaction and transactions across digital platforms and services without relying on a central intermediary. It creates a unified ecosystem for digital commerce, facilitating interoperability among applications and platforms through standardized APIs. This protocol is technology-agnostic, making it applicable across various sectors such as e-commerce, mobility, and healthcare. Beckn manages the entire transaction lifecycle, from discovery to fulfillment, and aims to empower small businesses by providing equal access and retaining their agency in a non-rivalrous, non-exclusive network. Since its inception in May 2020, the Beckn community has grown to include businesses and organizations, big and small, co-creating digital networks and driving innovation in digital commerce. Its guiding principles of openness, minimal footprint, and community-driven growth echo the success of protocols like HTTP in fueling global internet adoption. The Solid Protocol The Solid Protocol, developed by Tim Berners-Lee, is a decentralized web standard that allows users to store and control their personal data in secure, private data stores known as "Pods." This system empowers users to manage their data independently from applications, defining fine-grained access controls for who can view or use it. By utilizing decentralized data storage, users gain enhanced privacy, data portability, and reduced reliance on centralized platforms. Solid is built on open W3C standards and uses WebID for authentication and linked data technologies like RDF and OWL, allowing applications to interoperate and users to retain ownership and control of their data. The protocol aligns with Web 3.0 principles, enabling more secure, efficient, and user-centric interactions across the internet. Press Digital Flanders As the European Union aimed to become an attractive, secure, and dynamic data economy, the Government of Flanders was eager to become a central player in this new data infrastructure and a leader in secure data sharing, bolstering the Flemish economy and leading to new innovations. Flemish government launches data company Athumi Flemish minister-president Jan Jambon officially presented the Flemish data company Athumi on Thursday evening. The company introduces data vaults in Flanders, which will allow citizens to choose what data they share with which organisations and for how long. OpenCommons Launches Smart Cities Collaborative WIKI OpenCommons in partnership with The Cirrus Group a non profit and the National Institute of Standards and Technology have launched a catalog of smart city projects, resources and organizations.

Authors

The way to think about data is as a new currency – a store of value. What is the value of data, it is a similar question to what is the value of the USD or GBP. The answer for the value of USD is that it is a “basket of goods” because the USD is a store of (potential) value. Stuff you can spend the USD on.

A similar answer for the value of data would be “a basket of personalisations/recommendations”. Taking the analogy further, data isn’t valuable till you ‘spend’ it, i.e. when it becomes a medium of exchange. Like the way USD is not really valuable till you spend it. And just because it has the potential to be spent on something, doesn’t mean that it can be realised. Try to go to a country that doesn’t accept USD and you’ll get what I mean. Currently, the part of the Internet that is thirsty for this personal data currency (in a very lumpy and crude form) is advertising. But that is quickly changing. We are already seeing personal data being used (“spent”?) for recommendations, advice, and insights across a whole range of industries.

The difference between data and USD is of course in the way data is made into a medium of exchange. Data on Facebook is a currency because of the way Facebook organises it for its ease of use and exchange in targeting ads. So Facebook data on Facebook is not just where the data sits, it is also where the exchange happens. Facebook personal data is therefore a kind of personal data currency in the ‘country’ of Facebook and FB has created exchanges and transactions that made the medium of exchange possible. Take the data out of Facebook, and suddenly one is not really sure of its ‘value’. Without the platform, it’s data is stripped of its contextual use, making its value uncertain unless there is another place to use it. So, stripped of its context, FB personal data becomes a potential value in use.

The way the USD ensures its potential value is realised is by having it in an accessible place, like a wallet or a bank account, and by having places to spend it. Then when we see something we like, we can immediately spend it. Data is similar. Its value is only realised when used. Your body dimensions data are a great set of data when ‘spent’ or used for recommendations from a clothing shop. Like the USD, data can be a store of value but you would need it to be in a holding place until you see something that you want recommendation or personalisation on and you can then give it out. With USD you can do that with a wallet or a credit card/bank account. With data you have a HAT microserver – real time, on demand personal data as a medium of exchange with apps and websites – and a way to be available for every form you want to fill as well as every time you want to give any information about you, your life, your health or your views in return for something on the Internet.

However, the analogy between data and USD breaks down when you go further into its economic properties. For USD, once it’s spent, you’ve got to out to earn more of it. For data, you can use and re-use that data again and again. That’s why it’s worth keeping it for ourselves. They are a part of our attributes and our digital history (assuming its real, that is), and no amount of money can buy that history if you’ve never collected it. And if you didn’t, and when the future comes along to be able to exchange data with great recommendations, personalisation and advice for health well being, jobs, clothing, diet etc. etc., we will be poorer without our data.

HAT microservers help make our personal data into a store of value, making us a more valuable Internet citizen; Using plugs, we can bring the data that is out on the Internet into our HAT. Yet, to make our HAT data into a universal medium of exchange requires a different effort and it leads to the second question I get asked a lot – how to make personal data controlled and owned by the person usable and valuable. That, really, is a question on how we make HAT data a universal medium of exchange i.e. how do we make personal data a currency for the person to be able to ‘spend it’.

People think data is an object or some commodity like oil. It doesn’t help that many have actually said “data is the new oil”. This makes a BIG assumption i.e. we know the boundaries of what makes it a commodity. Even oil is commoditised through rights to drill or a barrel of crude oil. Data? Its existence does not make it an economic good. Not yet anyway.