This week find out how open data is helping to address corruption in poorer nations, how big data is challenging traditional economic models. The White House invites contributions to Project Open Data and data scientists partner with universities to unleash the power of big data.
Open Data Resources
Open Data Policy — Managing Information as an Asset
The White House has developed Project Open Data, which provides code, tools, and case studies that can help agencies adopt their Open Data Policy and maximise open government data’s potential. Anyone interested in open government data can view and contribute to it.
Open Data Applied
How open data empowers citizens of poorer nations
While rich countries lead the way in open data initiatives, in the developing world where open data and open data reuse is essential for addressing corruption, open data initiatives are still not as robust. The post however describes some of the ways that open data has been helping to ensure checks and balances on those in power in some countries.
Data and Philanthropy
The Foundation Center has just released Foundation Stats which provides open data and resources for generating tables and charts on the size, scope, and giving priorities of the U.S. foundation community.
Big Data Applied
The Next Big Thing You Missed: Big-Data Men Rewrite Government’s Tired Economic Models
David Soloff and Joe Reisinger, founders of Premise talk about how they are challenging the government’s highly centralized approach to analyzing the health of the economy. Premise measures in real time, economic trends around the world on a very granular level. It combines data gathered through machine learning with that from human data collectors on the ground who quickly gather new information about the economy. The platform is designed for maximum pattern recognition, and it extracts a lot of the data it needs from photos taken by data collectors in the field.
Big Data Partnerships
Bold new partnership launches to harness potential of data scientists and big data
A new multi-million dollar collaboration which includes New York University, the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Washington will enable university researchers to harness big data’s potential. It is being supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and was announced at a meeting sponsored by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).
