PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF OPEN DATA

Open data development and policies are at the forefront of decision-making at the governmental level in both the US and the UK, where open data is seen as part of government transparency. Both governments

vii _{See http://www.theodi.org} viii _{See http://cdrc.ac.uk/}

emphasise the potential benefits to society and the economy (Susha et al. 2014). An example in the UK is

Hack-ney-thon: 24 Hours To Hack For Hackney, organised by Hackney London Borough Council; in the

US, New York City's Big App organises regular events at which programmers, developers, designers and entrepreneurs use open data to devise solutions to civic problems. The talks given at Cybersalon events by Priya Prakash and Yodit Stanton highlight openness and cooperation as essential to solve problems in civic systems and services.

Prakash founded and runs the neighbourhood platform Changify and the urban experience studio Design for Social Change. Both efforts focus on building smart cities from the bottom up based on a citizen-centric architecture. Changify's design was informed by Prakash’s experience of attending civic meetings where data gathering was considered more important than data sharing. Her solutions are presented as design patterns that allow locals to use the Changify social network to share both the things they would like to change and the things they love in their neighbourhoods.

In her Cybersalon presentation,ix _Prakash

demonstrated the continuous stream of data and activity that results from collaborative creation for the smart city and that, given the tools her studio has been developing, can be powered solely by citizens. On Changify, people socialise about things that matter to them by taking and uploading photos, exchanging ideas, solutions, and skills, or making their own prototypes. Participants are invited to walk their local area and collectively identify issues, then talk with local businesses to gain insight and generate support, before completing a citizens' canvass of stakeholders, volunteers, and other interested parties. Finally, they build on the prototypes and contacts they have developed to gain backing from local businesses, city councils, and others to help finance and realise the changes they wish to make. This model of engagement between residents and their neighbourhood as well as among companies, shops, and residents, shows the value of applying open data models to specific locales and communities.

Prakash's vision assumes that citizens will collect their own data. However, to create solutions that serve all parties and create cohesion, businesses, municipal services, and communities will need to come together and share the data each has collected. At present, this model of cooperation is difficult to attain as there is no set process for it, as Yodit Stanton highlighted.

ix _{'Reclaim the City', Cybersalon 26 November 2014.} x _{See opensensors.io}

xi _{OpenSensor 2015}

A software engineer, Stanton is founder and CEO of OpenSensors.io,x _{an Open Data Institute-incubated}

startup that provides software and platforms for the Internet of Things. The goal is to create a "commons" around real-time data for all kinds of internet-connected devices.xi _{Stanton's Cybersalon presentation}xii _detailed

the circuitous route she had to follow to acquire publicly owned datasets from government agencies and companies when she was commissioned by Westminster Council to analyse its parking and footfall data. After three months of trying, neither those who had commissioned the study nor those who had provided the systems that generated and collected the data could provide access. Incomprehensible outsourcing contracts, a chain of custody involving eight separate companies, and tortuous chains of conversions between file types as the data travelled from sensor device to data analyst all helped create the blockage.

While Stanton's experience showed her that local authorities are keen to open up their data and appreciate its usefulness in delivering insight and improving the civic space, she notes they often don't know how. Further, they fear liability for future abuse or misuse. Stanton challenged us to forget the hype surrounding future smart cities and focus instead on the tangible problems we can solve today by simplifying the costly, increasingly complex, publicly owned digital infrastructures that councils must manage. She cited Bristol's efforts to create a "programmable city" as an example of getting it right.

In a final example of building civic systems, in mid- November 2014, with the cooperation of the Government Digital Service and support from MiniBar Labs, Hackney Borough Council organised the weekend-long Hack-ney- thon:24 Hours To Hack For Hackney.xiii_{The brief was}

for software creatives and cultural industry practitioners living in and around Hackney to collaborate intensively to make Hackney's council services more efficient and

user-friendly. As part of the event, the Cybersalon team developed Hackney Treasures, an app that links location data to historical Wikipedia articles to celebrate the work

all the creative and interesting minds that live and have lived in the Hackney area .

Hackathons regularly use product prototyping and engineering experimentation, as are common in the technology industries, to create practical applications. In the public sphere hackathons can kickstart individuals' understanding of code and provide general-purpose spaces for focused innovation efforts. The purpose of the Hackney event was to draw on the talent in London’s

xii _{'unSmart Cities: The New Hyperhabitat', Cybersalon 26 February}

2015

xiii _{See http://news.hackney.gov.uk/hacking-for-hackney--the-first-}

Tech City to find and create local solutions. Avariety of technology partners provided API access and mapping tools to augment government open data sources. Simple solutions like the Hackney Treasures app demonstrate that technologies can be modified to meet the requirements, needs, and recreational activities of a particular group as well as represent an area in a specific context.

This section has discussed entrepreneurial initiatives that are opening up communication between communities and the public and private sectors. What follows presents thework of artists and practitioners who are experimenting with the forms that sensor-generated data might take and ways the public might engage with and use them.