- 21-Jul-2014
- Social Entrepreneurship
- IT
Open Data Discourse
Abstract
The big data revolution has inspired (and FOIA has required) many municipalities, including Cambridge and even smaller municipalities, to publish data they collect in order to increase transparency, find efficiencies in their operations and make better data-driven decisions and policies.
These municipalities have invested a lot of money and established a data infrastructure to publish data. They have launched what they call “Open Data Portals” to increase transparency.
None however have taken the next step to leverage this public data to find efficiencies in their operations and make better data-driven decisions and policies.
Open Data Discourse works with government agencies and non-profit organizations to get more bang from the buck they’ve already invested in publishing data. Specifically, ODD develops a strategy to increase the visibility of data and guides stakeholders to develop insights from that data that inform policy.
In less than two weeks ODD helped make a dataset from the City of Cambridge Massachusetts the second most visited dataset on the City’s website in the entire year. By engaging citizens, from artists and storytellers to data scientists, ODD also broadened avenues for civic participation.
ODD envisions self-supporting, continuing sources of revenue to be generated from contracts with agencies, recruitment and placement fees for agencies looking to hire data professionals, corporate sponsorship, and licensing fees for content and the web-platform.
ODD needs money and staff to kickstart operations. Specifically, we need to determine the addressable market size and to do customer acquisition.
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Additional Questions
Who is your customer?
ODD will target government agencies and non-profit organizations that currently publish data on an Open Data Portal and that do not also have a communications and community engagement strategy for their data. The market of municipalities with open data portals includes: 38 states, 46 US cities and counties, 46 countries, and 163 international regions (according to http://www.data.gov/open-gov/). Most large municipalities have Open Data Portals including the Cities of Boston, Cambridge, Chicago, Washington DC, New York, and Providence, to name only a few.
What problem does this idea/product solve or what market need does it serve?
The big data revolution has inspired (and FOIA has required) many municipalities, from large metropolises such as Chicago to smaller municipalities including Cambridge, MA, to publish data they collect in order to increase transparency, find efficiencies in their operations and make better data-driven decisions and policies.
These municipalities have invested a lot of money to establish a data warehouses and the infrastructure to house and publish data. They have launched what they call “Open Data Portals” and are effectively increasing the transparency of the data they collect.
Very few municipalities however have taken the next step to leverage this public data to find efficiencies in their operations and make better data-driven decisions and policies. Few have invested time, thought, and energy into making use of the information they already pay to collect and paid to publish. Even fewer have figured out how to outsource the work of developing data insights, get feedback on what is important to their constituencies, and supplement quantitative data with qualitative experience.
What attributes will make this idea/product successful? Why do you believe that those features will create success?
Open Data Discourse will improve the operations of public decision makers, by building capacity, creating efficiencies, facilitating data-driven decision-making, and outwardly demonstrating their connection and commitment to their constituency. Policy makers will benefit from creative solutions, sourced from more minds and from a variety of intellectual backgrounds. They will receive feedback that is targeted around a specific question and therefore will save staff research time.
Further, ODD gives those with technical skills (e.g., data analysis and info-graphic design) an opportunity to apply them productively to public policy development and those without technical skills the opportunity to learn them.
Explain how you (your team) will execute to make this idea/product successful? What gives you (your team) an advantage over others already in the market or new to this market?
Other online platforms that currently hold data competitions (e.g. Kaggle, Drivendata) focus mainly on the predictive aspect of the competition. Typically winners of these competitions are selected based on how well they are able to predict a particular outcome using a dataset that is provided. Thus, their main target audience are tech-savvy data scientists. ODD aims to be more inclusive by inviting submissions of all types, not merely ones that require building a predictive model, which allows individuals of all backgrounds to enter these competitions (artists and storytellers in addition to data scientists). We also offer unique civic participation opportunities for challenge participants by holding discussion workshops at the end of competitions that bring together policymakers and participants.
