Open data – for the provincial government they’re more than just buzzwords.
To prove it, the Ontario Open Government initiative, started in 2013, is on a road show to talk with residents, get feedback and learn how the government can make its vast stores of data available to citizens and useful to private companies.
Ministry representatives from Transportation, Finance, Education and Training, Colleges and Universities were in Waterloo Region Jan. 16 to talk big data with local entrepreneurs and software developers.
Industry representatives, from one-person startups to major corporations such as Canadian Tire, joined the government in roundtables to discuss challenges and brainstorm uses for open data.
Canadian Tire was particularly excited with the prospect of working with the datasets.
“Outside of Canadian Tire there's a lot of data that interests us,” said Danny Ho, solutions architect at Canadian Tire Innovations. “An example would be the Canadian Tire Drivers Academy. The Ministry of Transportation has a lot of information we want: road speeds, driver demographics, and collision information. It’s a lot of knowledge we could share with students learning to drive. We can package information and stats that shows them consequences, best practices and show them how to be better drivers.”
Communitech hosted the event that set into motion discussion about open data uses, privacy concerns and commercialization options.
“We're here today as part of the Ontario government to really get some ideas to generate some interest and enthusiasm and ideas around what the Ontario government can do with the great rich data stories that it holds,” said Ron McKerlie, deputy minister for Open Government.
The Open Government initiative wants to hear from potential end users how important the data is to them. The team is looking to the public, entrepreneurs, software developers and community members to offer ideas on how to monetize the information, solve real problems and make life better for Ontarians.
“The fact that the government is doing this open data initiative is absolutely mind-blowing,” Ho said. “I think Canadian Tire definitely looks forward to working with government, and using the data as well as helping them create higher-quality and more-useful data.”
Kevin Tuer, Managing Director of the Canadian Digital Media Network (CDMN), values the collaboration between government and the public on the open data issue. He sees Communitech, a CDMN Hub, acting as a bridge between the two.
Tuer believes a big challenge will be encouraging people to find and access the data. He’s not, however, worried that the data won’t be used.
“If you seed the community with some ideas [for specific big data applications], some examples of how open data has been used, and then you give them access to that data, I think they will figure those things out,” Tuer says. “It will be a market-driven need. Who better than the entrepreneurs, those who are hungry, to monetize the data and make applications that fulfil a want?”
