Interview between Rahim Kanani and Geoff Mulgan, CEO of NESTA and member of the MacArthur Research Network on Opening Governance: “Our aspiration is to become a global center of expertise on all kinds of innovation, from how to back creative business start-ups and how to shape innovations tools such as challenge prizes, to helping governments act as catalysts for new solutions,” explained Geoff Mulgan, chief executive of Nesta, the UK’s innovation foundation. In an interview with Mulgan, we discussed their new report, published in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies, which highlights 20 of the world’s top innovation teams in government. Mulgan and I also discussed the founding and evolution of Nesta over the past few years, and leadership lessons from his time inside and outside government.
Rahim Kanani: When we talk about ‘innovations in government’, isn’t that an oxymoron?
Geoff Mulgan: Governments have always innovated. The Internet and World Wide Web both originated in public organizations, and governments are constantly developing new ideas, from public health systems to carbon trading schemes, online tax filing to high speed rail networks. But they’re much less systematic at innovation than the best in business and science. There are very few job roles, especially at senior levels, few budgets, and few teams or units. So although there are plenty of creative individuals in the public sector, they succeed despite, not because of the systems around them. Risk-taking is punished not rewarded. Over the last century, by contrast, the best businesses have learned how to run R&D departments, product development teams, open innovation processes and reasonably sophisticated ways of tracking investments and returns.
Kanani: This new report, published in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies, highlights 20 of the world’s most effective innovation teams in government working to address a range of issues, from reducing murder rates to promoting economic growth. Before I get to the results, how did this project come about, and why is it so important?
Mulgan: If you fail to generate new ideas, test them and scale the ones that work, it’s inevitable that productivity will stagnate and governments will fail to keep up with public expectations, particularly when waves of new technology—from smart phones and the cloud to big data—are opening up dramatic new possibilities. Mayor Bloomberg has been a leading advocate for innovation in the public sector, and in New York he showed the virtues of energetic experiment, combined with rigorous measurement of results. In the UK, organizations like Nesta have approached innovation in a very similar way, so it seemed timely to collaborate on a study of the state of the field, particularly since we were regularly being approached by governments wanting to set up new teams and asking for guidance.
Kanani: Where are some of the most effective innovation teams working on these issues, and how did you find them?
Mulgan: In our own work at Nesta, we’ve regularly sought out the best innovation teams that we could learn from and this study made it possible to do that more systematically, focusing in particular on the teams within national and city governments. They vary greatly, but all the best ones are achieving impact with relatively slim resources. Some are based in central governments, like Mindlab in Denmark, which has pioneered the use of design methods to reshape government services, from small business licensing to welfare. SITRA in Finland has been going for decades as a public technology agency, and more recently has switched its attention to innovation in public services. For example, providing mobile tools to help patients manage their own healthcare. In the city of Seoul, the Mayor set up an innovation team to accelerate the adoption of ‘sharing’ tools, so that people could share things like cars, freeing money for other things. In south Australia the government set up an innovation agency that has been pioneering radical ways of helping troubled families, mobilizing families to help other families.
Kanani: What surprised you the most about the outcomes of this research?
Mulgan: Perhaps the biggest surprise has been the speed with which this idea is spreading. Since we started the research, we’ve come across new teams being created in dozens of countries, from Canada and New Zealand to Cambodia and Chile. China has set up a mobile technology lab for city governments. Mexico City and many others have set up labs focused on creative uses of open data. A batch of cities across the US supported by Bloomberg Philanthropy—from Memphis and New Orleans to Boston and Philadelphia—are now showing impressive results and persuading others to copy them.
Open Data for economic growth: the latest evidence
Andrew Stott at the Worldbank OpenData Blog: “One of the key policy drivers for Open Data has been to drive economic growth and business innovation. There’s a growing amount of evidence and analysis not only for the total potential economic benefit but also for some of the ways in which this is coming about. This evidence is summarised and reviewed in a new World Bank paper published today.
There’s a range of studies that suggest that the potential prize from Open Data could be enormous – including an estimate of $3-5 trillion a year globally from McKinsey Global Institute and an estimate of $13 trillion cumulative over the next 5 years in the G20 countries. There are supporting studies of the value of Open Data to certain sectors in certain countries – for instance $20 billion a year to Agriculture in the US – and of the value of key datasets such as geospatial data. All these support the conclusion that the economic potential is at least significant – although with a range from “significant” to “extremely significant”!
At least some of this benefit is already being realised by new companies that have sprung up to deliver new, innovative, data-rich services and by older companies improving their efficiency by using open data to optimise their operations. Five main business archetypes have been identified – suppliers, aggregators, enrichers, application developers and enablers. What’s more there are at least four companies which did not exist ten years ago, which are driven by Open Data, and which are each now valued at around $1 billion or more. Somewhat surprisingly the drive to exploit Open Data is coming from outside the traditional “ICT sector” – although the ICT sector is supplying many of the tools required.
It’s also becoming clear that if countries want to maximise their gain from Open Data the role of government needs to go beyond simply publishing some data on a website. Governments need to be:
- Suppliers – of the data that business need
- Leaders – making sure that municipalities, state owned enterprises and public services operated by the private sector also release important data
- Catalysts – nurturing a thriving ecosystem of data users, coders and application developers and incubating new, data-driven businesses
- Users – using Open Data themselves to overcome the barriers to using data within government and innovating new ways to use the data they collect to improve public services and government efficiency.
Nevertheless, most of the evidence for big economic benefits for Open Data comes from the developed world. So on Wednesday the World Bank is holding an open seminar to examine critically “Can Open Data Boost Economic Growth and Prosperity” in developing countries. Please join us and join the debate!
Learn more:
- World Bank: Open Data for Economic Growth
- Event: Can Open Data Boost Economic Growth and Prosperity? Wednesday, July 23 at 9:00am ET
- McKinsey & Company : Open data: Unlocking innovation and performance with liquid information
- Omidyar Network: The Business Case for Open Data
- GPS Innovation Alliance: Study Shows Importance of Commercial GPS to the U.S. Economy
- Oxera: What is the economic impact of Geo services?
- Deloitte: Open growth: Stimulating demand for open data in the UK“
Recent progress in Open Data production and consumption
Examples from a Governmental institute (SMHI) and a collaborative EU research project (SWITCH-ON) by Arheimer, Berit; and Falkenroth, Esa: “The Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) has a long tradition both in producing and consuming open data on a national, European and global scale. It is also promoting community building among water scientists in Europe by participating in and initiating collaborative projects. This presentation will exemplify the contemporary European movement imposed by the INSPIRE directive and the Open Data Strategy, by showing the progress in openness and shift in attitudes during the last decade when handling Research Data and Public Sector Information at a national European institute. Moreover, the presentation will inform about a recently started collaborative project (EU FP7 project No 603587) coordinated by SMHI and called SWITCH-ON http://water-switch-on.eu/. The project addresses water concerns and currently untapped potential of open data for improved water management across the EU. The overall goal of the project is to make use of open data, and add value to society by repurposing and refining data from various sources. SWITCH-ON will establish new forms of water research and facilitate the development of new products and services based on principles of sharing and community building in the water society. The SWITCH-ON objectives are to use open data for implementing: 1) an innovative spatial information platform with open data tailored for direct water assessments, 2) an entirely new form of collaborative research for water-related sciences, 3) fourteen new operational products and services dedicated to appointed end-users, 4) new business and knowledge to inform individual and collective decisions in line with the Europe’s smart growth and environmental objectives. The presentation will discuss challenges, progress and opportunities with the open data strategy, based on the experiences from working both at a Governmental institute and being part of the global research community.”
Business Models That Take Advantage of Open Data Opportunities
The OKFestival—hosted by the Open Knowledge Foundation—brought together more than 1,000 participants from around the globe working on various aspects of the open data agenda: the use of corporate data, open science research, government open data and crowdsourced data projects.
In a session held on the first day of the event, Borlongan facilitated an interactive workshop to help would-be entrepreneurs understand how startups are building business models that take advantage of open data opportunities to create sustainable, employment-generating businesses.
Citing research from the McKinsey Institute that calculates the value of open data to be worth $3 trillion globally, Borlongan said: “So the understanding of the open data process is usually: We throw open data over the wall, then we hold a hackathon, and then people will start making products off it, and then we make the $3 trillion.”
Borlongan argued that it is actually a “blurry identity to be an open data startup” and encouraged participants to unpack, with each of the startups presenting exactly how income can be generated and a viable business built in this space.
Jeni Tennison, from the U.K.’s Open Data Institute (which supports 15 businesses in its Startup Programme) categorizes two types of business models:
In a session held on the first day of the event, Borlongan facilitated an interactive workshop to help would-be entrepreneurs understand how startups are building business models that take advantage of open data opportunities to create sustainable, employment-generating businesses.
Citing research from the McKinsey Institute that calculates the value of open data to be worth $3 trillion globally, Borlongan said: “So the understanding of the open data process is usually: We throw open data over the wall, then we hold a hackathon, and then people will start making products off it, and then we make the $3 trillion.”
Borlongan argued that it is actually a “blurry identity to be an open data startup” and encouraged participants to unpack, with each of the startups presenting exactly how income can be generated and a viable business built in this space.
Jeni Tennison, from the U.K.’s Open Data Institute (which supports 15 businesses in its Startup Programme) categorizes two types of business models:
- Businesses that publish (but do not sell) open data.
- Businesses built on top of using open data.
Businesses That Publish but Do Not Sell Open Data
At the Open Data Institute, Tennison is investigating the possibility of an open address database that would provide street address data for every property in the U.K. She describes three types of business models that could be created by projects that generated and published such data:
Freemium: In this model, the bulk data of open addresses could be made available freely, “but if you want an API service, then you would pay for it.” Tennison pointed to lots of opportunities also to degrade the freemium-level data—for example, having it available in bulk but not at a particularly granular level (unless you pay for it), or by provisioning reuse on a share-only basis, but you would pay if you wanted the data for corporate use cases (similar to how OpenCorporates sells access to its data).
Cross-subsidy: In this approach, the data would be available, and the opportunities to generate income would come from providing extra services, like consultancy or white labeling data services alongside publishing the open data.
Network: In this business model, value is created by generating a network effect around the core business interest, which may not be the open data itself. As an example, Tennison suggested that if a post office or delivery company were to create the open address database, it might be interested in encouraging private citizens to collaboratively maintain or crowdsource the quality of the data. The revenue generated by this open data would then come from reductions in the cost of delivery services as the data improved accuracy.
Businesses Built on Top of Open Data
Six startups working in unique ways to make use of available open data also presented their business models to OKFestival attendees: Development Seed, Mapbox, OpenDataSoft, Enigma.io, Open Bank API, and Snips.
Startup: Development Seed
What it does: Builds solutions for development, public health and citizen democracy challenges by creating open source tools and utilizing open data.
Open data API focus: Regularly uses open data APIs in its projects. For example, it worked with the World Bank to create a data visualization website built on top of the World Bank API.
Type of business model: Consultancy, but it has also created new businesses out of the products developed as part of its work, most notably Mapbox (see below).
Startup: Enigma.io
What it does: Open data platform with advanced discovery and search functions.
Open data API focus: Provides the Enigma API to allow programmatic access to all data sets and some analytics from the Enigma platform.
Type of business model: SaaS including a freemium plan with no degradation of data and with access to API calls; some venture funding; some contracting services to particular enterprises; creating new products in Enigma Labs for potential later sale.
Startup: Mapbox
What it does: Enables users to design and publish maps based on crowdsourced OpenStreetMap data.
Open data API focus: Uses OpenStreetMap APIs to draw data into its map-creation interface; provides the Mapbox API to allow programmatic creation of maps using Mapbox web services.
Type of business model: SaaS including freemium plan; some tailored contracts for big map users such as Foursquare and Evernote.
Startup: Open Bank Project
What it does: Creates an open source API for use by banks.
Open data API focus: Its core product is to build an API so that banks can use a standard, open source API tool when creating applications and web services for their clients.
Type of business model: Contract license with tiered SLAs depending on the number of applications built using the API; IT consultancy projects.
Startup: OpenDataSoft
What it does: Provides an open data publishing platform so that cities, governments, utilities and companies can publish their own data portal for internal and public use.
Open data API focus: It’s able to route data sources into the portal from a publisher’s APIs; provides automatic API-creation tools so that any data set uploaded to the portal is then available as an API.
Type of business model: SaaS model with freemium plan, pricing by number of data sets published and number of API calls made against the data, with free access for academic and civic initiatives.
Startup: Snips
What it does: Predictive modeling for smart cities.
Open data API focus: Channels some open and client proprietary data into its modeling algorithm calculations via API; provides a predictive modeling API for clients’ use to programmatically generate solutions based on their data.
Type of business model: Creating one B2C app product for sale as a revenue-generation product; individual contracts with cities and companies to solve particular pain points, such as using predictive modeling to help a post office company better manage staff rosters (matched to sales needs) and a consultancy project to create a visualization mapping tool that can predict the risk of car accidents for a city….”
European Commission encourages re-use of public sector data
Press Release: “Today, the European Commission is publishing guidelines to help Member States benefit from the revised Directive on the re-use of public sector information (PSI Directive). These guidelines explain for example how to give access to weather data, traffic data, property asset data and maps. Open data can be used as the basis for innovative value-added services and products, such as mobile apps, which encourage investment in data-driven sectors. The guidelines published today are based on a detailed consultation and cover issues such as:
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Licencing: guidelines on when public bodies can allow the re-use of documents without conditions or licences; gives conditions under which the re-use of personal data is possible. For example:
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Public sector bodies should not impose licences when a simple notice is sufficient;
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Open licences available on the web, such as several “Creative Commons” licences can facilitate the re-use of public sector data without the need to develop custom-made licences;
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Attribution requirement is sufficient in most cases of PSI re-use.
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Datasets: presents five thematic dataset categories that businesses and other potential re-users are mostly interested in and could thus be given priority for being made available for re-use. For example:
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Postcodes, national and local maps;
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Weather, land and water quality, energy consumption, emission levels and other environmental and earth data;
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Transport data: public transport timetables, road works, traffic information;
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Statistics: GDP, age, health, unemployment, income, education etc.;
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Company and business registers.
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Cost: gives an overview on how public sector bodies, including libraries, museums and archives, should calculate the amount they should charge re-users for data. For example:
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Where digital documents are downloaded electronically a no‑cost policy is recommended;
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For cost-recovery charging, any income generated in the process of collecting or producing documents, e.g. from registration fees or taxes, should be subtracted from the total costs incurred so as to establish the ‘net cost’ of collection, production, reproduction and dissemination.
European Commission Vice President @NeelieKroesEU said: “This guidance will help all of us benefit from the wealth of information public bodies hold. Opening and re-using this data will lead to many new businesses and convenient services.“
An independent report carried out by the consultants McKinsey in 2013 claimed that open data re-use could boost the global economy hugely; and a 2013 Spanish studyfound that commercial re-users in Spain could employ around 10,000 people and reach a business volume of €900 million….”
See also Speech by Neelie Kroes: Embracing the open opportunity
France: Rapport de la Commission Open Data en santé
“La Commission « open data en santé », qui s’est réunie de novembre 2013 à mai 2014, avait pour mission de débattre, dans un cadre pluraliste associant les parties prenantes, des enjeux et des propositions en matière d’accès aux données de santé.
Ce rapport, remis le 9 juillet 2014 à Marisol Touraine, Ministre des Affaires sociales et de la Santé, retrace les travaux et discussions de la Commission :
Ce rapport, remis le 9 juillet 2014 à Marisol Touraine, Ministre des Affaires sociales et de la Santé, retrace les travaux et discussions de la Commission :
- Un panorama de l’existant (partie 1) : définitions des concepts, état du droit, présentation de la gouvernance, présentation de l’accès aux données du SNIIRAM et du PMSI, cartographie des données de santé et enseignements tirés des expériences étrangères ;
- Les enjeux pour l’avenir (partie 2) ;
- Les actions à mener (partie 3) : données à ouvrir en open data, orientations en matière de données réidentifiantes, données relatives aux professionnels et aux établissements.
Ce rapport a été adopté consensuellement par l’ensemble des membres de la commission, qui partagent des attentes communes et fortes.”
Rapport final commission open data (pdf – 1 Mo) – [09/07/2014] – [MAJ : 09/07/2014]
Introduction to Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Standards
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker Announces Expansion and Enhancement of Commerce Data Programs
Press Release from the U.S. Secretary of Commerce:Department will hire first-ever Chief Data Officer
As “America’s Data Agency,” the Department of Commerce is prepared and well-positioned to foster the next phase in the open data revolution. In line with President Obama’s Year of Action, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker today announced a series of steps taken to enhance and expand the data programs at the Department.
“Data is a key pillar of the Department’s “Open for Business Agenda,” and for the first time, we have made it a department-wide strategic priority,” said Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. “No other department can rival the reach, depth and breadth of the Department of Commerce’s data programs. The Department of Commerce is working to unleash more of its data to strengthen the nation’s economic growth; make its data easier to access, understand, and use; and maximize the return of data investments for businesses, entrepreneurs, government, taxpayers, and communities.”
Secretary Pritzker made a number of major announcements today as a special guest speaker at the Environmental Systems Research Institute’s (Esri) User Conference in San Diego, California. She discussed the power and potential of open data, recognizing that data not only enable start-ups and entrepreneurs, move markets, and empower companies large and small, but also touch the lives of Americans every day.
In her remarks, Secretary Pritzker outlined new ways the Department of Commerce is working to unlock the potential of even more open data to make government smarter, including the following:
Chief Data Officer
Today, Secretary Pritzker announced the Commerce Department will hire its first-ever Chief Data Officer. This leader will be responsible for developing and implementing a vision for the future of the diverse data resources at Commerce.
The new Chief Data Officer will pull together a platform for all data sets; instigate and oversee improvements in data collection and dissemination; and ensure that data programs are coordinated, comprehensive, and strategic.
The Chief Data Officer will hold the key to unlocking more government data to help support a data-enabled Department and economy.
Trade Developer Portal
The International Trade Administration has launched its “Developer Portal,” an online toolkit to put diverse sets of trade and investment data in a single place, making it easier for the business community to use and better tap into the 95 percent of American customers that live overseas.
In creating this portal, the Commerce Department is making its data public to software developers, giving them access to authoritative information on U.S. exports and international trade to help U.S. businesses export and expand their operations in overseas markets. The developer community will be able to integrate the data into applications and mashups to help U.S. business owners compete abroad while also creating more jobs here at home.
Data Advisory Council
Open data requires open dialogue. To facilitate this, the Commerce Department is creating a data advisory council, comprised of 15 private sector leaders that will advise the Department on the best use of government data.
This new advisory council will help Commerce maximize the value of its data by:
“Data is a key pillar of the Department’s “Open for Business Agenda,” and for the first time, we have made it a department-wide strategic priority,” said Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. “No other department can rival the reach, depth and breadth of the Department of Commerce’s data programs. The Department of Commerce is working to unleash more of its data to strengthen the nation’s economic growth; make its data easier to access, understand, and use; and maximize the return of data investments for businesses, entrepreneurs, government, taxpayers, and communities.”
Secretary Pritzker made a number of major announcements today as a special guest speaker at the Environmental Systems Research Institute’s (Esri) User Conference in San Diego, California. She discussed the power and potential of open data, recognizing that data not only enable start-ups and entrepreneurs, move markets, and empower companies large and small, but also touch the lives of Americans every day.
In her remarks, Secretary Pritzker outlined new ways the Department of Commerce is working to unlock the potential of even more open data to make government smarter, including the following:
Chief Data Officer
Today, Secretary Pritzker announced the Commerce Department will hire its first-ever Chief Data Officer. This leader will be responsible for developing and implementing a vision for the future of the diverse data resources at Commerce.
The new Chief Data Officer will pull together a platform for all data sets; instigate and oversee improvements in data collection and dissemination; and ensure that data programs are coordinated, comprehensive, and strategic.
The Chief Data Officer will hold the key to unlocking more government data to help support a data-enabled Department and economy.
Trade Developer Portal
The International Trade Administration has launched its “Developer Portal,” an online toolkit to put diverse sets of trade and investment data in a single place, making it easier for the business community to use and better tap into the 95 percent of American customers that live overseas.
In creating this portal, the Commerce Department is making its data public to software developers, giving them access to authoritative information on U.S. exports and international trade to help U.S. businesses export and expand their operations in overseas markets. The developer community will be able to integrate the data into applications and mashups to help U.S. business owners compete abroad while also creating more jobs here at home.
Data Advisory Council
Open data requires open dialogue. To facilitate this, the Commerce Department is creating a data advisory council, comprised of 15 private sector leaders that will advise the Department on the best use of government data.
This new advisory council will help Commerce maximize the value of its data by:
- discovering how to deliver data in more usable, timely, and accessible ways;
- improving how data is utilized and shared to make businesses and governments more responsive, cost-effective, and efficient;
- better anticipating customers’ needs; and
- collaborating with the private sector to develop new data products and services.
The council’s primary focus will be on the accessibility and usability of Commerce data, as well as the transformation of the Department’s supporting infrastructure and procedures for managing data.
These data leaders will represent a broad range of business interests—reflecting the wide range of scientific, statistical, and other data that the Department of Commerce produces. Members will serve two-year terms and will meet about four times a year. The advisory council will be housed within the Economics and Statistics Administration.”
Commerce data inform decisions that help make government smarter, keep businesses more competitive and better inform citizens about their own communities – with the potential to guide up to $3.3 trillion in investments in the United States each year.
The open data imperative
Paper by Geoffrey Boulton in Insights: the UKSG journal: “The information revolution of recent decades is a world historical event that is changing the lives of individuals, societies and economies and with major implications for science, research and learning. It offers profound opportunities to explore phenomena that were hitherto beyond our power to resolve, and at the same time is undermining the process whereby concurrent publication of scientific concept and evidence (data) permitted scrutiny, replication and refutation and that has been the bedrock of scientific progress and of ‘self-correction’ since the inception of the first scientific journals in the 17th century. Open publication, release and sharing of data are vital habits that need to be redefined and redeveloped for the modern age by the research community if it is to exploit technological opportunities, maintain self-correction and maximize the contribution of research to human understanding and welfare.”
GitHub: A Swiss Army knife for open government
FCW: “Today, more than 300 government agencies are using the platform for public and private development. Cities (Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco), states (New York, Washington, Utah) and countries (United Kingdom, Australia) are sharing code and paving a new road to civic collaboration….
Civic-focused organizations — such as the OpenGov Foundation, the Sunlight Foundation and the Open Knowledge Foundation — are also actively involved with original projects on GitHub. Those projects include the OpenGov Foundation’s Madison document-editing tool touted by the likes of Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and the Open Knowledge Foundation’s CKAN, which powers hundreds of government data platforms around the world.
According to GovCode, an aggregator of public government open-source projects hosted on GitHub, there have been hundreds of individual contributors and nearly 90,000 code commits, which involve making a set of tentative changes permanent.
The nitty-gritty
Getting started on GitHub is similar to the process for other social networking platforms. Users create individual accounts and can set up “organizations” for agencies or cities. They can then create repositories (or repos) to collaborate on projects through an individual or organizational account. Other developers or organizations can download repo code for reuse or repurpose it in their own repositories (called forking), and make it available to others to do the same.
Collaborative aspects of GitHub include pull requests that allow developers to submit and accept updates to repos that build on and grow an open-source project. There are wikis, gists (code snippet sharing) and issue tracking for bugs, feature requests, or general questions and answers.
GitHub provides free code hosting for all public repos. Upgrade offerings include personal and organizational plans based on the number of private repos. For organizations that want a self-hosted GitHub development environment, GitHub Enterprise, used by the likes of CFPB, allows for self-hosted, private repos behind a firewall.
GitHub’s core user interface can be unwelcoming or even intimidating to the nondeveloper, but GitHub’s Pages package offers Web-hosting features that include domain mapping and lightweight content management tools such as static site generator Jekyll and text editor Atom.
Notable government projects that use Pages are the White House’s Project Open Data, 18F’s /Developer Program, CFPB’s Open Tech website and New York’s Open Data Handbook. Indeed, Wired recently commented that the White House’s open-data GitHub efforts “could help fix government.”…
See also: GitHub for Government (GovLab)