Sir Tim Berners-Lee: Raw data, now! (Wired UK)

abernard102@gmail.com 2012-11-11

Summary:

Originally, the acute frustration which led me to invent the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1989 was all about documents. The frustration was that all kinds of documents were sitting in disks on machines. Even at a very advanced place like the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), a networked world in which most computers in my environment were connected, one couldn't easily browse through all the files. The WWW design offered a solution, and the world of linked documents exploded dramatically. However, even at the first web conference in 1994, it was clear that a rather complex and potentially more profound frustration (and opportunity) existed when you looked at data rather than documents. Data, after all, is stuff machines can handle, and while the web of documents might have seemed intoxicating to early web "surfers", the lure of doing the same thing to the data was that we could create a world in which it would be programs -- not just people -- that would enjoy the data... We have seen some of the power and acceleration which happens when governments such as the UK and US have put data on the web. But this is the tip of the iceberg. The information about spending, agriculture, health and education that lies behind locked databases could be used to dramatically improve people's lives. When governments begin to release data openly on the web, the growing movement of hackers and activists and even internal government agencies and corporations, can begin to use the previously unconnected and undissected numbers, images and graphs to create new ways for you to access valuable new information.  Take the example of the UK aid funded Southern Africa Regional Programme on Access to Medicines and Diagnostics (SARPAM). This is an organisation that painstakingly worked with insiders in health ministries and local health professionals to collect and publish public data on the price and availability of medicines. They revealed that some governments were being charged enormously higher rates -- up to 25 times more -- for the same medicines. The findings enabled governments to put pressure on pharmaceutical companies to reduce the prices.  Imagine how quickly impacts such as these would multiply if governments were to openly publish this data, not just about the cost of medicine, but also about student attendance rates or crop productivity compared to use of pesticides. Scientific data could help researchers to find new drugs, given genomics and the biology of individuals, and the massive amount of data needed to understand and combat climate change would be available to all who work on it... the simple message to governments around the world must be consistent and forceful: raw data, now! Opening up data is fundamentally about more efficient use of resources and improving service delivery for citizens. The effects of that are far reaching: innovation, transparency, accountability, better governance and economic growth.  I'm interested to see the results of the Open Data Research network, which is bringing together researchers from the global south to explore the emerging impacts of open data in developing countries, and to better understand how it is impacting upon decision making and implementation. The network is being led by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and the World Wide Web Foundation, an organisation I founded to keep the Web free (as in freedom) and open, and to help to bring it within the reach of all..."

Link:

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-11/09/raw-data

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.psi oa.policies oa.comment oa.usa oa.south oa.events oa.crowd oa.lay oa.open_data_institute oa.data.gov.uk oa.studies oa.web_foundation oa.data.gov oa.idrc oa.web_index oa.open_data_research_network oa.government oa.data

Date tagged:

11/11/2012, 18:04

Date published:

11/11/2012, 13:04