Ubiquitous Commons is a philosophical and technological toolkit enabling citizens, institutions, organizations, enterprises, researchers and other stakeholders to become actively engaged in defining how the data and information they produce (through their bodies, expressions, movements, actions, gestures…) are used. A process that aims to ensure that their rights are protected and that ethical initiatives for science, civic action, social organization and coordination become possible.
Jul 01, 2015•24 min
Democracy Club is a group of volunteers that aims to increase the quantity, quality and accessibility of information on election candidates, politicians and democratic processes through digital tools, microvolunteering and collaboration with like-minded organisations. Web developer & designer Sym Roe talked about the story behind YourNextMP, who reused the data, as well as the other Democracy Club projects and where they’re heading in the future.
May 22, 2015•18 min
Ben Unsworth, Data Solutions Engineer at Socrata, explained how immersive user experience and machine learning can help governments engage users and drive better understanding from open data. Our videos: bit.ly/odi_vimeo Our photos: bit.ly/odi_flickr Our audio: bit.ly/odi_soundcloud Our slides: bit.ly/odi_scribd Our tweets: bit.ly/ODIHQ_tweets Our website: theodi.org ODI Summit videos: bit.ly/odisummit_video What is open data?: bit.ly/what-is-open-data The World of Data: bit.ly/worldofdata
May 14, 2015•32 min
What roles do artists play in raising questions about open data and technology? This lunchtime lecture we heard from ODI Associate Curator in Residence Hannah Redler, who reflected on the ODI’s art programme ‘Data as Culture’. Hannah also shared her insights gained over 20 years spent commissioning and curating artists working with technology in major museum environments. Our videos: bit.ly/odi_vimeo Our photos: bit.ly/odi_flickr Our audio: bit.ly/odi_soundcloud Our slides: bit.ly/odi_scribd Our...
Apr 17, 2015•21 min
The ODI, in partnership with Nesta, is running a series of Open Data Challenges. The Heritage + Culture Open Data Challenge invited people to use open data to create products or services that would engage more and more diverse people with UK heritage and culture. This lunchtime lecture we meet the three finalists: City Radar, Culture Everywhere and Rabble Days. They each give a short pitch about their products, their development so far, how they are using open data to innovate and what their pla...
Apr 10, 2015•26 min
The 2015 general election is rapidly approaching. What will the UK Government look like after the 7 May 2015? What are the challenges that lay ahead? Gavin Freeguard from the Institute for Government uses open data charts from the Whitehall Monitor to pinpoint some of the pressures that could face a new government and discusses how the UK can continue to lead the open data agenda after the election. Gavin joined the Institute For Government in August 2013 and his work is currently focused on Whi...
Mar 16, 2015•28 min
If you don’t know where your personalised data has gone, there’s no way to know whether your wishes are being respected. Mistakes that arise due to secrecy can be catastrophic to public trust in the handling of NHS patients’ data, and in other fields. How do we begin to understand and resolve these issues? What are the benefits of medical data in research studies and the development of new treatments? How do we open a window onto how our medical data is being used to benefit everyone? For this l...
Mar 06, 2015•23 min
The ODI released its ‘Open data roadmap for the UK’ in December 2014, with steps the next UK Government can take to continue to make progress on open data. As the General Election draws closer, we’re starting to dig into the details behind the roadmap and open it up for public consultation. What would a Chief Data Officer for the UK look like? How can we use the National Information Infrastructure to plan for the future? Listen back on this engaging and fun session exploring the drivers behind t...
Feb 27, 2015•27 min
Over the last two years the World Wide Web Foundation’s Open Data Barometer has surveyed the open data landscape in over 75 countries, building up a picture of progress, and pitfalls, on the road to ‘open by default’. The latest edition of the Barometer, launched in January 2015, shows a growing data divide. But it also points to areas where open data is having impact, and highlights factors that appear to contribute to greater political, economic and social outcomes from open data initiatives. ...
Feb 20, 2015•29 min
Open Data portals, smart city initiatives, data marketplaces, M2M (machine to machine), real-time monitoring… all important structures, but what are their real world implications? What are their tangible benefits? For this Friday lunchtime lecture, we explore actual use cases of open data to create innovative new services. Marie-Cécile Huet is Chief Marketing Officer of OpenDataSoft, a software company developing a Cloud-based turnkey platform for data publishing, sharing and reuse. Twitter: @mc...
Feb 13, 2015•23 min
For our 6 February lecture… How can open data help you choose your job? Choosing a career path isn’t easy. With so many paths to take, it can be difficult to know which would suit us best. Open data can help. The UK Commission for Employment and Skills has developed ‘LMI for All’, an open data portal to support careers guidance. The portal brings together labour market information (LMI) via an API for developers to present in a variety of ways for wide audiences. Our videos: bit.ly/odi_vimeo Our...
Feb 06, 2015•25 min
For our 30 January lecture… BBC Things - joining up the news with open data Online news organisations are exploring how to describe and connect the content of their stories using tags. The BBC recently opened its tagging data up to the public, with the launch of BBC Things. What benefits does this bring to journalism? Could we use open data to join up a story being told across the web? Join James Logan, Product Owner of the BBC Linked Data Platform, discussed these questions and more at this Fri...
Jan 30, 2015•14 min
Open data holds the potential to open up the energy market in the UK. Small, renewable generators produce almost 15% of the UK’s electricity, but they often lack the industry knowledge to get the best rates in selling their power onto the grid. Open Utility is a company that uses open data to help people buy and sell renewable energy. James Johnston explained their plans to create a peer-to-peer energy marketplace. Our videos: bit.ly/odi_vimeo Our photos: bit.ly/odi_flickr Our audio: bit.ly/odi_...
Dec 12, 2014•26 min
One thing we won’t be short of in the future is data – we’ll have detailed analytics about how we live and the world around us. But what about the past? Is it possible to pull together data about the history of our cities and gain some insight into the past? In this lecture, Leigh Dodds introduced a project from Bath: Hacked, that is using historical maps and cultural heritage open data to let people begin exploring 400 years of Bath’s history. Leigh Dodds is an associate with the Open Data Inst...
Dec 05, 2014•25 min
James Smith, developer at the ODI, is standing for parliament in the 2016 UK general election, and is using open data to do it. In this lecture, he explained how the data that’s out there can provide interesting insights for election campaign planning, and how he’s also planning to publish as much open data as possible on campaign financing. James is passionate about using web technology and Open Data to make a better future for everyone, with a particular interest in the environmental and socia...
Nov 21, 2014•32 min
GOV.UK performance is a new approach to improving government services, using data. We show the metrics that matter to the civil servants who provide government services. All the dashboards are public – no usernames or passwords – so the government is accountable for the services it provides. We’re making the map of the UK’s public services and how they connect together. And we’re building this map around the user needs of citizens and businesses. Listen in as we look at how we’re using data to h...
Nov 07, 2014•10 min
If you thought 3D printing was some sort of futuristic sci-fi technology that would never catch on, think again. I can make is a group that produces kits to help teachers, parents and children understand all about 3D printing. Chris Thorpe, I can make’s technology spoke about how the group hopes to help inspire the current school generation to become the engineers, inventors and manufacturers of the future. Chris is a technologist who makes things with code, APIs and now 3D printing. He was once...
Oct 24, 2014•40 min
Data from the High Speed 2 project has been released under an Open Government Licence. This has provided companies like Landmark an opportunity to enter the world of “Open”. Jez Nicholson told us about the product that Landmark has built upon the HS2 data and how “Open” may have ultimately changed the business itself. By day, Jez Nicholson is Head of Product Development for a leading property risk assessment company. By night, he is lead developer of OpenPlaques.org. With kind thanks to Thomson ...
Oct 16, 2014•19 min
You don’t have to look far to find pictures and infographics that visualise data to make us understand it better. But musical representations of data are harder to come by. Developer-musicians Nicholas Tollervey and Simon Davy have taken footfall data provided by the Leeds Data Mill and turned it into music for brass band (yes, you read that right). Their lunchtime lecture was a loud, fun and thought-provoking exposition of open data manipulated via the programming language Python into a meaning...
Oct 10, 2014•39 min
Everyday our cities generate increasingly vast amounts of data. What happens when this data from across public, private and the third sector becomes open? Mark Barrett argues that focussing our use of local data so that it is “for the city, by the city” is the path towards unlocking the most value from open data. Mark Barrett is an open data lead for Leeds, and created Leeds Data Mill – the open data platform for the city – surfacing public, private and 3rd sector information. He also co-founded...
Sep 25, 2014•24 min
Governments hold a lot of data. A huge amount of data. And many are beginning to open it up for citizens and businesses to monitor and improve all sorts of things – from education and public services to crime rates and traffic. But all this data has to be stored, managed and presented in ways people can understand. CKAN is a data management platform used by governments and organisations around the world to handle these important functions. Irina Bolychevsky delivered a live demonstration of its ...
Sep 19, 2014•42 min
The Great British Public Toilet Map is an on-going project to map the UK’s public toilets using open data. It began in 2010 when only one council was publishing toilet data and is soon to relaunch with a database of over 5000 facilities. Gail Ramster describes an outsider’s pursuit of local council open data and the obstacles encountered, including Ordnance Survey licensing, FOI legislation and the need for a standard format. Ramster is a Research Associate at Royal College of Art working on peo...
Sep 08, 2014•17 min
People tend to think of ‘public goods’ as things like suburban roads that must be built by governments because if governments don’t provide them, then no-one will. But this is an impoverished definition of public goods. In fact, private and public goods operate in an ecology, each reinforcing the other, and they do so in every social organisation we have – within families, suburban football clubs, firms. We will explore these ideas and then focus on open data as the new emergent public good of o...
Jul 25, 2014•38 min
People tend to think of ‘public goods’ as things like suburban roads that must be built by governments because if governments don’t provide them, then no-one will. But this is an impoverished definition of public goods. In fact, private and public goods operate in an ecology, each reinforcing the other, and they do so in every social organisation we have – within families, suburban football clubs, firms. We will explore these ideas and then focus on open data as the new emergent public good of o...
Jul 25, 2014•38 min
As the open data movement gains momentum, it becomes clear that there are substantial business opportunities to be seized through the use and publication of data. However, using open data can often present new risks which need to be managed. Drawing on some preliminary findings from an ongoing study of SMEs, corporate and public sector organisations, Tom Wainwright seek to provide insight into these issues. Dr Thomas Wainwright is a researcher based in the University of Southampton’s Centre for ...
Jul 11, 2014•23 min
Open data has the potential to power tools that provide solutions to real problems. Although the UK is the world leader in releasing open data, its use in informing real world solutions has been limited and fragmented, with innovative startups sometimes lacking support and data expertise to scale to a sustainable business level. Hear from the final winners of the first three Open Data Challenges - individuals who have developed a solution to a specific social issue and been supported through the...
Jul 04, 2014•23 min
New, cheaper sensor and tracking hardware, and new big data and data science techniques, mean that we can now gather and use huge amounts of real-time data to understand the built environment better. Francine Bennett of Mastodon C talks about the technical challenges, applications, and potential future value of collecting and using data in buildings. Francine is CEO and Co-founder of big data specialists Mastodon C. They offer an open source technology platform and the skills to help users reali...
Jun 27, 2014•25 min
The web has transformed our lives so much over the last twenty years that we think of it as an inevitable development and a permanent part of our world. In this talk, Professor Carr explains how the open web we know is just one of many attempts over the last century to build a planet-wide network of information. Why was this one successful? And will it continue to be so? Professor Leslie Carr is a Director of the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton where he researches the impa...
Jun 20, 2014•25 min
Ben Unsworth explains why data is our next opportunity in the evolution towards a democracy that is less ideological, and more entrepreneurial, collaborative, interactive, and performance-driven – a Public Sector that is about results and better outcomes for citizens. Slides from this talk can be found here - http://www.scribd.com/doc/229833691/Friday-lunchtime-lecture-How-can-local-government-deliver-better-services-with-fewer-resources-using-data
Jun 13, 2014•36 min
The care.data programme in the NHS came off the rails, despite – or possibly because – officials tried presenting it as an ‘open data’ initiative. It isn’t. But this conflation of ‘data sharing’ with open data is far from unique; from the National Pupil Database to your tax records and Cabinet Office’s resurrection of plans for mass sharing of citizen data that last surfaced in an obscure clause in the 2009 Coroners and Justice Bill, the government has designs on your data. With Phil Booth - for...
Jun 06, 2014•21 min
