Back in 2011, Mashable published an interesting article about How Open Data Initiatives Can Improve City Life. The examples provided show that city governments have been willing to help facilitate the organization and dissemination of data flows for civic minded uses (namely, innovative apps). This makes me think it is possible to organize a National Open Data Initiative in order to help people understand their environment and make decisions. Having access to a variety of local and national social-environmental information databases would help everyday people depict numerous very useful information flows, such as local commerce activity, public works, sustainability developments, city transportation, crime, civic participation, as well as minute daily details like trash pickup, infrastructure repair, parking information, even transparency and community engagement information. While you ponder that, here is a great article on why data nerds will inherit the earth , and a few others:
Related articles
- Why Open Data Matters More Than Ever (emcplus.emc.com)
- Socrata Publishes New Digital Magazine on Open Data Innovation (prweb.com)
- Open data, apps and maps (protohub.net)
- World Bank Announces Million Dollar Open Data Initiative (techpresident.com)
- Open Knowledge Foundation: How can open data lead to better data quality? (okfn.org)
- NYC Launches Redesigned Open Data Portal and New APIs (programmableweb.com)