WSTA Luncheon Briefing: Using Open Data to Drive Innovation and Entrepreneurship

"The benefits of open data and transparency are uniquely visible within the entrepreneurial world. Data is what fuels innovators' work; the more data available for them to use, the easier it is for them to create new tools, apps, projects, and programs, all of which can be geared towards boosting entrepreneurship. With this in mind, it is important for us to promote the idea that fusing the two - open data and entrepreneurship - will result in more positive, impactful results. More cities are putting information on everything from street-cleaning schedules to police-response times and restaurant inspection reports in the public domain, in the hope that people will find a way to make money off the data. Supporters of such programs often see them as a local economic stimulus plan, allowing software developers and entrepreneurs in cities ranging from San Francisco to South Bend, Ind., to New York, to build new businesses based on the information they get from government websites. The origins of city open-data programs can be traced back to a December 2009 Obama administration directive to federal agencies to post more public information online. Since then, some 175 federal agencies-including the Defense and Justice departments-have posted more than 88,000 data sets on data.gov, the federal government's open-data site. And more than 43 cities have followed suit. Since 2010, City of Seattle has put more than 200 data sets online, including crime rates, 911 calls and the precise locations of bicycle racks ..."