Jason Hare's Data Management Blog

Located in the world-renowned Research Triangle Park, Raleigh, North Carolina enjoys proximity to some of the world’s best technology resources, including leading research institutions, innovative companies, and a tech-savvy populus.  It is these citizens that the city leaders look to for collaboration and that inspire them to make Raleigh’s open data initiative one of the most innovative in the world. Citizens and City Collaborate Throughout Raleigh’s history, locals with a passion for technology have reached out to the City with ideas on how to improve the quality of life in the town. By 2011, a particular group of activists was especially interested in getting the city to embrace an open government strategy. In fact, many of them joined together to form a local Code for America (CfA) brigade, called Code for Raleigh, promoting the use of public data to address local issues. City Council member Bonner

Open Source Way  is celebrating Open Government Week with a  series of articles including this one. Open Government Week is always a time for reflection on what has changed in the previous 12 months, and this year is no exception. Open Raleigh is nearing it’s second year as a program. Open Raleigh  shares this milestone with the  Open Data Institute (ODI)  which is also nearing a second birthday. The Open Data Institute has had significant influence over the development of the Open Raleigh program and over open data as a movement. The ODI was one of the first institutions to suggest an open data strategy and philosophy that stresses inclusiveness and collaboration. This collaborative, regional approach has since become a hallmark of Open Raleigh and more and more what has become the norm for open data movements across the United States. Open Raleigh has made its project management, white papers, policies, and source code open. By making the Open

  We Need a New Data License I am in Ireland for the Open Government Partnership (OGP) European Summit . Today as I was attending the Civil Society Day that precedes the summit and was listening to people talking about privacy issues, something crystallized in my mind that had been percolating for a while – we need a new data license. As the CEO for the Open Data Institute node in North Carolina , our mission is to evangelize open and unfettered access to data, more specifically Open Data. Open Data is defined as data that is machine readable in a non-proprietary format, is easy to access, use and reuse without license at no cost to the user. Open Data does not contain any personally identifiable information (PII), confidential information or information of a security nature. Personal Data and Privacy Concerns But what about all this government data (and other data) that is available when requested as a public record via something like a FOIA request? This data can and does contain

  Heads up! The Health Data Jam in the Triangle is here. We still have some tickets and now you can use  this promo code for TSW with you -  TSWFRIEND .  It will give you a 20% discount off of your registration fee.   I hope you'll be able to come again this year!  Who:  TSW:  Health DataJam  brings together passionate health professionals, students, entrepreneurs, developers, and designers on a mission to revolutionize the health sector through relevant open data.  What:  The weekends are 54-hour experiential learning events that provide participants the opportunity to pitch ideas, collaborate with others who have complementary skill sets, and produce startups that solve important health problems using open data. This particular Startup Weekend serves as a lead-in to the 2nd Annual NC  DataPalooza  competition.  When:  May 16th - 18th   Where:   HQ Raleigh , 310 S. Harrington Street  Why:  Through collaboration, entrepreneurial thinking, community building, and leveraging open dat

  Open Sourcing Open Data at Open Raleigh Open Government Week is always a time for reflection on what has changed in the previous 12 months and this year is no exception. Open Raleigh is nearing it’s second year as a program. Open Raleigh shares this milestone with the Open Data Institute (ODI) which is also nearing a second birthday. The ODI has had significant influence over the development of the Open Raleigh program and over open data as a movement. It was one of the first institutions to suggest an open data strategy and philosophy that stresses inclusiveness and collaboration. This collaborative, regional approach has since become a hallmark of Open Raleigh and increasingly become the norm for open data movements across the United States. Open Raleigh has made its project management, white papers, policies and source code open. By making the Open Raleigh program an open source project, we create significant value by allowing other municipalities to build on our work and contribu

  by  Ian Henshaw Cary, NC – The Open Data Institute of London, UK has a node in North Carolina – the  Open Data Institute of North Carolina  (ODI NC). Local Open Data guru  Jason Hare  chartered the Node in October 2013 and finally convinced local entrepreneur  Ian Henshaw  to come on board as CEO. What is the Open Data Institute? The Open Data Institute is catalyzing the evolution of open data culture to create economic, environmental, and social value. It helps unlock supply, generates demand, creates and disseminates knowledge to address local and global issues. We convene world-class experts to collaborate, incubate, nurture and mentor new ideas, and promote innovation. We enable anyone to learn and engage with open data, and empower our teams to help others through professional coaching and mentoring. What is a Node of the Open Data Institute? Each ODI Node has agreed to adopt the ODI Charter, which is a open source codification of the ODI itself, and embodies principles of open

Recently I had the pleasure of working with +Denis Parfenov and his team on crafting the Open Government Action Plan for Ireland. This weekend, Denis shared with his open data colleagues around the world the draft that Ireland would be putting forth and asked for feedback. I thought back to 2012 when I was just starting on the Open Raleigh website. Certainly the roots were there. I had the benefit of +Gail M. Roper and her existing work on building an Open Raleigh Program. I also had the benefit of Raleigh City Council's Open Data Resolution championed by +Bonner Gaylord . When I arrived I got my city laptop, a desk and some advice on how to approach building the program. Ultimately, it felt a little like looking at a white sheet of paper and thinking to myself "now what". I was fortunate in that Francis Maude had recently published " Unleash the Potential ". This white paper spelled out the open data program for the UK. In the document was the following: A v