University News Last updated 03 June 2011
NTI Birmingham (New Technology Institute) part of Birmingham City University positioned themselves at the centre of the open data agenda by teaming up with Speeddata to host an event called ‘Making (and Saving) Money with Open Data’; exploring ways business can make money through the influx of public data being released by government.
Opportunities to innovate and create new services around this data are many but what are the business models that will sustain such activity? The University recognised this is a huge challenge facing digital and IT companies and in response invited successful data businesses to speak to those working across public and private sector, to help make working with Open Data more of an opportunity than a risk.
Hadley Beeman founder at LinkedGov kicked off the session by sharing thinking on how business models might change with the opening of public data and opportunities it creates for small to medium sized enterprises.
Music Metric, Tallis and Boilerhouse Media gave perfect examples of how data driven businesses operate, sharing experiences on how to turn raw data into something more meaningful.
Marie- Alicia from Music Metric said “The open data event was an incredibly productive experience that not only proved how far and wide the challenges of data permeate through all areas of business, but as a company focussing primarily in entertainment, just how similar the challenges that are being faced across any number of verticals and government organisations.
“The call for standardisation across open data is a highly relevant and pivotal discussion. Semetric looks to create such standards within entertainment and work with our clients to unearth from the digital landscape the questions most relevant to ask of the data in order to surface the correct conclusions.”
The event attracted a mix of owners and workers in small to medium companies wishing to engage with this agenda and to public sector managers seeking to develop new digital services that are compelling and engaging.
The evening session gave delegates a technical insight into Open Data projects. Podnosh and Substrakt teamed up to collaborate under the Speeddata banner to deliver a hands on workshop, aimed at developing ideas for useful, commercial and social open data projects.
Each small group was asked to come up with an idea. Get help refining it. Discover data sources. Understand the technological approach and tools available. See how the idea can be visually represented effectively and then practice a pitch in readiness for the panel of judges.
At the end, each group pitched their idea to a judging panel: Dave Harte, Award Leader, MA Social Media at Birmingham City University and Simon Jenner of Adventures in Business and founder of Urban Coffee Company.
Gavin Wray, Client Liaison and Support at Podnosh Ltd said “It was great to see a wide range of ideas coming out of the SpeedData evening session: a tool to aid investment choices related to land and buildings in the EU; experimental work on mapping third places; and a website to help construction developers make smarter purchasing decisions and increase efficiency in new builds.
The winning idea, pitched by Chris Waring, creative lead for Kasabi at Talis, was helping patients find their best hospital for treatment using an application based on open government data."
Dave Harte, Senior lecturer in MA Social Media said "Our event showed that there is a real appetite amongst creative companies to work on innovate open data projects and that they see the university as playing a key role in helping them identify project ideas and develop business cases for them. At the event, the community of open data activists in Birmingham have showed that this is an agenda in which collaboration and the open exchange of ideas is crucial."