 
|
|||||||||||||
|
Using open data to improve the society"Citizens can do more than just be watchers and elect wise leaders. They can be active participants for the well-being of the society!" said Professor Beth Simone Noveck, who directs The Governance Lab and its MacArthur Research Network on Opening Governance in the USA . Noveck gave the keynote lecture at the Open Finland 2014 seminar this September in Helsinki. The initiative to use open data from governmental and private organizations was introduced a few years ago. What does it mean to be open? To keep government accountable, to limit corruption and to increase efficiency in all levels, summerized Noveck. We are at the moment having radical reenvisioning of our conception of citizenship and transition to an open government from merely a good government. The information that government collects about people is owned by tax-payers and also payed by us. Via a myriad of established new non-profit organizations and companies, people are able to utilize it much more than the government alone could, said Noveck. To move forward with the initiative of open data, we obviously also need policies and laws, added Noveck. We need practical strategies to translate big ideas into practise, not only principles. And we need actions also from bottom to up. We need groups that push and demand for open data: "If you'll give us the data, we will use it, we are interested in it!" Groups from both the civil society and the academic world are called to build up the ecosystem of open data into reality. What is open data good for? The benefits of open data for the society are many, including its financial value. The economic potential is enormous, said Noveck. McKinsey has estimated that the global value of open data is three trillion dollars. The uses can be distributed in almost all sectors of society, the health care sector being one of the biggest beneficiaries. The savings there by using open data have been estimated to be hundreds of billions of dollars. The applications range from curing chronic illnesses to spending more time rather on wellness of people than solely increasing the efficiency of the system, described Noveck. In health care, the big open data is useful for spotting the problems and targeting resources better. In the US, one of the big issues in that sector at the moment is better planning of post-acute care. It aims at lowering the risk of patient readmission soon after release from the hospital, thereby resulting in significant savings. Governmental organizations like the US Patent Office have also started to use open data as they process the applications. As a result, decision times have declined, told Professor Noveck. The use of open data has improved even how the Government itself works. What are the challenges to overcome? Professor Noveck mentioned that in order to fully utilize the vast potential of open data, there are some hurdles to cross. The biggest obstacle is privacy. We have to be able to protect people's private information together with the open datasets. The system is not foolproof yet and there have been, for example, cases of accidental release of ID numbers. Secondly, athough open data can bring in a lot of money, it also has costs. The raw data from various statistics is not enough, it has to be edited. The data is not only numbers but also includes laws and policies. All that governmental jargon has to be transformed to an interesting format that people are willing to read it. Only then it can be useful. There are cases of attractive magazines been produced of some important issues, and their readership has been much bigger, mentioned Noveck. Now we still have to move from the belief in open data to the real evidence based proof that it actually has a transformational positive impact on people's lives, emphasized Noveck. We have to set up open data learning infrastructure that we can learn what the experiences are when using open data. Even if we cannot solve all the big problems of the world, it is no excuse not to start with some smaller ones, conluded Noveck her talk. text Katri Pajusola
|
||||||||||||
