Between the Poles: Economic value of open data estimated at $3 trillion annually

"Open data has been gathering momentum among governments ever since United States Federal Government data was placed in the public domain.  The principle of free and open access to government geospatial data has been adopted by many governments including US Federal, Canada, Japan, South Africa, Brazil, California state and counties, and by the City of Vancouver and other cities.  G8 leaders (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom, United States, and the European Union) recently signed a charter on open data.  But being able to access prepared maps and other derived material is just a first step, governments need to provide access to raw geospatial data in commonly used Web-friendly formats.  In May 2013, President Obama issued an Executive Order making open and machine readable the new default for federal government information in the United States.  A major motivation for open data has been government transparency.  But there is also a strong belief that open data contributes to the economy.  I blogged earlier about a study by a team at Cambridge University commissioned by the Treasury that found that making all Ordnance Survey data (geospatial data)  free would cost the government £12m but bring a net gain of £156m.  Australia and New Zealand have commissioned studies of the contribution of spatial data to the national economy that have concluded that with appropriate government policies the contribution to the GDP, estimated to be on the order of 1%, could be doubled.  McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) have just published astudy that seeks to quantify the value of open data by examining applications in seven fields of the global economy: education, transportation, consumer products, electricity, oil and gas, health care, and consumer finance.  Their research found that seven sectors alone would generate more than $3 trillion a year in additional value as a result of open data.  For each of the sectors they looked at, MGI identified ways that open data could create economic value and identified potential barriers to adoption ..."