People tend to think of ‘public goods’ as things like suburban roads that must be built by governments because if governments don’t provide them, then no-one will. But this is an impoverished definition of public goods. In fact, private and public g

As the open data movement gains momentum, it becomes clear that there are substantial business opportunities to be seized through the use and publication of data. However, using open data can often present new risks which need to be managed. Drawing on so

Open data has the potential to power tools that provide solutions to real problems. Although the UK is the world leader in releasing open data, its use in informing real world solutions has been limited and fragmented, with innovative startups sometimes l

New, cheaper sensor and tracking hardware, and new big data and data science techniques, mean that we can now gather and use huge amounts of real-time data to understand the built environment better. Francine Bennett of Mastodon C talks about the technic

The web has transformed our lives so much over the last twenty years that we think of it as an inevitable development and a permanent part of our world. In this talk, Professor Carr explains how the open web we know is just one of many attempts over the l

Ben Unsworth explains why data is our next opportunity in the evolution towards a democracy that is less ideological, and more entrepreneurial, collaborative, interactive, and performance-driven – a Public Sector that is about results and better outcome

The care.data programme in the NHS came off the rails, despite – or possibly because – officials tried presenting it as an ‘open data’ initiative. It isn’t. But this conflation of ‘data sharing’ with open data is far from unique; from the Na

It’s often said that we know more about space than Earth’s oceans. How then, are marine scientists using new technologies, data science and open data to deepen our understanding of the seas? Adam Leadbetter is a professional marine data & semantic we

With over 5000 community energy groups in the UK, the big question is, what innovative role could open data play in supporting their work? The Open Data Challenge Series is focused on generating innovative and sustainable open data solutions to address th

With UK tenants facing soaring rents, poor conditions, a lack of security and unfair practices from landlords and letting agents - the private rented sector is high on the public and political agenda. The Government says it wants to fix this yet it doesnâ