Open data nowhere near its true potential as key players missing - Money - DNA

"Open data is going to be the next big thing. How much I wish I could say that. But alas, I have to instead spend the next few paragraphs explaining why it is nowhere near that ... Though open data can come from any source, one of the biggest source are governments and multilateral global agencies such as World Bank, IMF, UNESCO, and the like who collect huge amounts of information for their various studies.  Many governments have voluntarily decided to release the data to the public because they believe wide and open access to such data will result in innovative applications being created. To some extent, that has happened in countries like United States, which was one of the first countries to opt for this, and has since championed the concept globally. In many countries, open data is part of open governance initiatives.  But despite its huge potential, and limited pockets of success, open data movement is nowhere near realising its true potential when it comes to creating social or economic impact.  Many will invariably point fingers at the slow speed at which the government departments and agencies are releasing data. In India, for exampleafter more than five months of its launch, the open data site, data.gov.in, has just about 115 datasets; what’s worse, all those datasets are from only 11 government departments/agencies, who have participated so far.  While slow speed of releasing data may be a reason, it is surely not the only reason. Also, it is unfair to put the blame entirely on the government agencies. With little useful applications of the released datasets, they do not feel motivated enough to make that extra effort to release more and more, not because they have any objection to their being released—as many would like to believe—but because most of the data are not stored in machine readable format and has to be converted and cleaned before uploading them on the open data portal.  India launched the its open data site, data.gov.in in September last year. The site is part of the country’s commitment to provide open and transparent access to data collected by various government departments and agencies, as outlined in the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy 2012 (NDSAP-12).  The stated advantages, as envisioned by the policy, include maximization of use of data, avoidance/minimization of duplication of efforts on collection, facilitating integration by leading to common standards, providing ownership information, faster and better decision making, and of course, equitable access to information by all citizens ... As part of the plan, data management offices have been created in each of the departments, which are headed by senior officials called data controllers. Mostlargeministries/departments have already identified their data controllers, whose names are available in the site. The departments are responsible for directly uploading the datasets, in machine readable, re-usable format. National Informatics Centre (NIC) manages the site. The open data site in India is managed by an enthusiastic set of people at NIC who have been constantly engaging with both the government departments by promoting, training and helping them as well as the outside stakeholders such as software companies, individual developers, advocacy groups and NGOs who want to use this data. That is the right approach as without real collaboration happening among all stakeholders, it is difficult to progress ...  In essence, the gaps are two.   1. These people have little understanding of the end user needs and they also are not driven by that. So, there are often major gaps between what they develop and what the 'market' needs.  2. They often struggle after a point because they fail to generate money for taking it forward because of the above reason.  And those people who could actually help them in both—the marketers—are completely missing from the picture. Few marketing people that I follow in various media globally ever talk of how open data could change marketing, even though they keep talking about social media, mobile, and many other new technologies ..."