Revolution - that is the word people in open data use to describe their work’s potential. But what would the open data utopia actually look like?
One immediate point is that it need never look like very much to saturate our lives. Most people may never realise they are using open data. As Enrique Zapata, Mexico’s Deputy Director General of Open Data, put it, ‘Most people don’t know how electricity works. You walk into your house, you flick the switch and - magic - you have TV, you have your computer, you have everything. Data is the same. You don’t have to understand how it works, but you have to understand that it’s there and that you’re using it every day and that it’s ubiquitous in our daily lives.’
Read more: What will the open data utopia actually look like?
Open Data — data that is freely available online for anyone to use and republish for any purpose — is becoming increasingly important in today’s development agenda driven by the Data Revolution, which has been recognized worldwide as the key engine for achieving the post-2015 UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Data is probably one of the most valuable and least-utilized assets of modern governments. In that context, Open Data is being widely recognized as a resource with high economic and social value and as an effective approach for smarter data management.
Read more: New report: How Open Data can drive sustainable development
Government data can only remain useful within government, unless there is public participation in government decisions, the Philippines has said. This is why the Philippines open data team not only works closely with civil servants - who release the data - but also with citizens, the civil society and media, the beneficiaries of open data.
Read more: How government can engage communities in their open data movements
A new report ranks top G8 nations based on their signed agreement for open data success.
In June 2013, the G8 nations signed an agreement to support open data, and those nations have since been rated on their follow-up efforts -- with the United Kingdom taking the top spot, and Canada and the U.S. tied for second.
“This [open data] would boost cumulative G20 GDP by around 1.1 percentage points of the 2% growth target over five years,” the report Open for Business, by Lateral Economics and commissioned by Omidyar Network, said.
Read more: Open data can increase G20 output by US$13 trillion in next 5 years, study shows