Speakers and slides: roundup of ‘Open data: challenges and opportunities’

The Observatory and Andrew Mackenzie co-produced an event called Open data: challenges and opportunities, held in Birmingham on 15th July.

Oliver summarised the event and asked for comments on practical steps, particularly ‘ways that the more able authorities and organisations might be able to help the less able, through sharing tools and techniques with the wider public sector.’

The hashtag for the day was #wmod10 – there’s an archive of tweets available.

In this post below, we’ve shared all of the presenter’s slides and, where available, provided the presentations with audio.

Will Perrin – Talk About Local

Will Perrin from Talk About Local gave us a summary of recent policy developments in central government relating to open data and transparency. He then presented an example of using public sector data to influence a local authority to repair street lights, retrieve abandoned cars and tackle arson. Will also gave his take on setting up a local data store using freely-available tools.

View on SlideShare | Download Will’s slides (ppt, 6.5mb)

Gillian Horner – Ordnance Survey

Gillian Horner described how Ordnance Survey responded to the call for open public data, detailed licensing changes,  how OSOpenData is being used and highlighted resources Ordnance Survey have shared to enable web developers to build applications using OS maps.

Download Gillian’s slides (ppt, 6.1mb)

Chris Taggart – open local data

Chris Taggart runs OpenlyLocal.com, a website aiming to making local government more transparent. He covered a lot of ground in his presentation:

• Translating national policy to local government
• Current state of local government data
• Identifying some of the barriers local government face in publishing open data
• How OpenlyLocal.com was developed and its future
• Opportunities local government can take advantage of by publishing open data

View on SlideShare | Download Chris’ slides (ppt, 5.1mb)

Tim Davies – Practical Participation

Tim Davies gave us an early glimpse of his current research though his MSc at the Oxford Internet Institute, which looks at the impact of open data on democratic engagement and public service reform.

Watch slidecast (with audio) | Download Tim’s slides (ppt, 2.85mb)

Andrew Mackenzie – Consultant, take21

Andrew Mackenzie co-produced this event with the Observatory. He is a researcher and consultant interested in the intersection of policy, technology and innovation. He recently organised Mapitude, an event exploring mapping and open data.

View on SlideShare | Download Andrew’s slides (ppt, 2.6mb)

Kate Sahota – Warwickshire County Council

Kate Sahota took an interesting approach using the film Chocolat to tell us how Warwickshire County Council designed and created an open data store from scratch. (Apparently, Chris Taggart is ‘the Johnny Depp of open data.’)

Watch slidecast (with audio) | Download Kate’s slides (ppt, 1.04mb)

Dan Slee – Walsall Council

Dan Slee gave us an insight into the current landscape of opening data at Walsall Council.

Watch slidecast (with audio) | Download Dan’s slides (ppt, 3.58mb)

Simon Whitehouse – Open data in Birmingham

Simon Whitehouse detailed a range of projects Digital Birmingham are involved in. He covered open data in the city, engaging citizens in Lozells and Acocks Green through social media surgeries, how public data is being used for social benefit in Birmingham and several events connecting developers with public sector data such as Hackitude and Mapitude.

Watch slidecast (with audio) | Download Simon’s slides (ppt, 4.88mb)

Stuart Harrison – Open data: under the hood

Stuart Harrison is a leading developer of implementing open data in local government, through his open data work for Lichfield District Council.

Download Stuart’s slides (pdf, 2.14mb)