Open Data Round Up: 07/11/13

Lots of the Horizon team have been at this week’s Digital Economy All Hands event which took place at the incredible MediaCityUK in Salford. The theme was “Open Digital” so it was unsurprising to hear plenty about open data – including a fascinating final keynote speech from Dame Wendy Hall entitled “Lets Be Open About This” which looked at the importance of openness in the development of the world wide web and the potential of open data for the future. Dame Wendy also talked about the “Age of Data” and the importance of linked open data and big data.

Some other interesting developments in the open data arena this week have included:

• The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in partnership with the Information Economy Council have published their data capability strategy for the UK entitled “Seizing the data opportunity”. Neil Crockett of the Connected Digital Economy Catapult has welcomed the strategy as a “strong and important milestone” for the UK data community

• The Open Data Institute have published their Annual Review looking back on their first year of operation following The ODI Annual Summit last week . Highlights include the recruitment of 40 members – including Horizon – as well as support for a dozen start-ups and the establishment of a global network. Not bad for a years work!

•  The Connected Digital Economy Catapult have announced a number of new projects including the Greater Manchester Data Synchronisation Project – a partnership with FutureEverything and the Future Cities Catapult that will develop a programme of work to overcome a number of challenges around the areas of capacity, support and dissemination in the coordinated release of city datasets.

•  The Open Government Partnership conference took place in London on the 31st October and 1st November. If, like me, you didn’t manage to attend the conference the Cabinet Office have pulled together a handy summary of key news and announcements.

That’s it for this week but don’t forget to follow Horizon on Twitter for more regular updates and news about all aspects of the Digital Economy!