Ode to open data: benefits of open data compared to oil - European Data Portal

Open data: fuel for new technologies and basis for educated decision making - but better than oil.

"Data is the new oil" is a quote for example from Neelie Kroes, former Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda, Intel’s CEO Brian Krzanich or the Economist.

The analogy of data and oil stems from the British mathematician Clive Humby and is based on the fact that both data and oil need a certain amount of effort before their full potential can be leveraged. Oil needs to be refined and data needs to be processed to gain maximum value. Besides this, data and oil do not have much in common. Indeed, data is the basis for the technologies that are increasingly disrupting the ways we work, commute and communicate. However, in multiple aspects data, in particular open data, wins over oil.