Why Open Data?
Channel: British Computer Society Open Source Specialists
Date: 2020-05-22

Presented by Ian Watt

The term Open Data is generally understood to mean data that has been published, often by government, in a neutral format and with a licence that allows re-use. What is less clear are the reasons for opening data: the drivers; the economic and social benefits; the legal obligations and even the moral imperatives. In this short talk Ian Watt will cover these in a way which will not only aid understanding but will help someone to build a case to make their organisation’s data open too.

Ian is a Data Scientist and CEO and co-founder of the charity Code The City which operates Scotland’s only node of the Open Data Institute – ODI Aberdeen. He has been a prominent advocate for Open Data for almost ten years. Until his retirement from local government in 2017 he led the open data programme for Scotland’s seven cities. He recently became the civic society lead for Commitment Three (covering open data and data literacy) for the Open Government Scotland plan. He is on the steering group of Stirling University’s Data Commons research project, and is a non-executive director of Democracy Club, a UK CIC who use open data to improve democratic engagement.