Open data trailblazers to highlight transparency opportunities at Beyond 2010

Published by PartnersPR for Beyond 2010 in Local Government and also in Central Government

While many will see the demands of the coalition government’s transparency agenda as a challenge, a major conference called Beyond 2010, organised by Birmingham City Council, will demonstrate the opportunities it offers public sector organisations.

Making repositories of public sector information available to be accessed by citizens, otherwise known as ‘Open Data’ is one of the topics under the spotlight at Beyond 2010 in October, the only event of its kind this year to give public service providers both the strategic knowledge and practical solutions to effectively tackle open data and transparency.

The two-day Beyond 2010 conference, taking place at the International Convention Centre, Birmingham, on 20 – 21 October will bring together leading authorities on the subject of Open Data. This will include Will Perrin, campaigner and creator of the ‘Talk About Local’ social enterprise website initiative; and Professor Nigel Shadbolt, who is responsible for setting open data standards across the public sector and co-advising the government on the data.gov.uk initiative. 

Professor Shadbolt’s keynote speech at Beyond 2010 will give delegates valuable insights into the power of Open Data in the transformation of public services, explore the best strategic approaches and outline what future government policy will mean for public service delivery. 

One of the seminars at the two-day event, will focus on ‘Smart Data’ will provide real-life examples from two pioneering local authorities, Lichfield District Council and Warwickshire District Council, who have already started opening up their data.  Lichfield District Council webmaster Stuart Harrison will share information about the authority’s pioneering data publication work.

Warwickshire District Council will also share its recent experience of publishing council data to citizens, who then used this information as part of a competition earlier this year to create new applications from open data, which generated worldwide interest from various organisations including Web search engine giants Yahoo. 

ICT applications project manager, Kate Sahota, explains: "The winning application combined our new library book data along with other sources of data to provide a full overview of the new books including reviews, ratings, cover image and a short summary. A simple click-through offers site users the opportunity to reserve the book in their local library."

Best practice from around the world will available, too, with City of Edmonton Chief Information Officer Chris Moore talking about how his city has benefited from arguably the most comprehensive of all municipal open data programmes.

Organised by Birmingham City Council and its city-wide Digital Birmingham initiative, Beyond 2010 takes place at Birmingham’s International Convention Centre as part of “Hello Digital Week”, which runs from 18 - 22 October and comprises a number of events celebrating the city’s and the region's technological achievements against the best in the world.

More information and online booking is at www.beyond-2010.com