A few days ago, Tom Steinberg—the founder and former director of mySociety—wrote a fascinating piece on power that was meant for people developing civic technology. In a post on Medium, Tom clearly describes the nature of power as it relates to technology and implored civic technologists to think more directly about how shifts in power … Read more
2015 was a year of progress for government transparency — however, there’s still much work to be done. As 2015 winds to a close, we can look back on a year of success stories and failures when it comes to transparency in government. At the start of the year, the federal government began releasing its … Read more
Both types of data can transform the world, but when government turns big data into open data it’s especially powerful Big data and the new phenomenon open data are closely related but they’re not the same. Open data brings a perspective that can make big data more useful, more democratic, and less threatening. While big … Read more
Today the world contains a vast amount of data which continues to grow at speed. Explore moments in history which have played a part in shaping today’s data-driven society. Timo Arnall, Internet Machine, 2014 © Timo Arnall Source: http://www.elasticspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/InternetMachine10-web.jpg 1801 William Playfair, the founder of graphical methods of data, develops the first pie chart. 1837 … Read more
GDELT monitors the world’s news media from nearly every corner of every country in print, broadcast, and web formats, in over 100 languages, every moment of every day. Global Reach GDELT monitors print, broadcast, and web news media in over 100 languages from across every country in the world to keep continually updated on … Read more
The City of Vienna was the first public agency in a German speaking country to develop an Open Government Initative and to commit itself to the concept of Open Data – an open and transparent system that makes city data available to citizens for their further use. Vienna’s first Open Data catalogue has been presented … Read more
With the launch of ODI’s Open Data for Smart Cities course fast approaching, ODI Trainer Ben Cave shares his thoughts on why ‘smart cities’ fail, how to fix them and where open data fits in There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader! – Alexandre Ledru-Rollin There is an adage … Read more
The global food system is struggling under the combined pressures of a growing population, climate uncertainty and volatile market forces. Image: David Brewer, Jaffna Market, CC-BY-SA 2.0 Lots of information is important to how we farm and feed the world. Farmers need to know the weather forecast to plant and prepare their crops, food merchants … Read more
