Sky Convention Center - Wednesday 29 June to Friday 1 July
Exploring how the open nature of the Internet can affect Government
More NetHui Links:Video Coverage and Online Engagement
Government and Openness
Stream Leader: Laurence Millar
OVERVIEW
RAW DATA NOW was the rallying cry issued by Rufus Pollock from the Open Knowledge Foundation in November 2007. Sir Tim
Berners-Lee picked up the call in his landmark TED talk from February 2009, and we can now see the beginning of a
fundamental shift in the way governments around the world manage and release their data. Legislation in support of open
government has been in place in New Zealand since the Official Information Act in 1982 but it is only recently that Open
Data has become topical. Four factors have come into play at the same time, to create the conditions for Open Data.
• Firstly, a realization that government gathers a huge amount of data on every aspect of life on earth, which is
locked up in computers only accessible to an elite few.
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• Secondly, recognition that, by providing free public access to this data, governments can create value far in
excess of the revenue that it might earn from selling the data. The ideas underpinning this new economics were outlined
by Don Tapscott, and have been applied to government by Beth Noveck.
•
• Thirdly, the ubiquitous Internet, providing connectivity from anywhere to anywhere, allows individuals across
the world to build on each other’s work.
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• And finally, cloud-based computing tools deliver analytic and computational facilities to end-user analysts for
free, with similar strength to those tools previously available only to researchers in corporations or academic
institutions.
•
These factors also provide the foundation for other aspects of government and open-ness that will also be discussed
during the workshop sessions. These include freedom of information, open source, transparency, collaboration and
participation in service design and policy making.
THURSDAY 30 JUNE 2011
Open Government in 2020
Facilitator: Laurence Millar
In this session, we will develop ideas about the potential for open government in New Zealand in 2020. Brainstorming of
the different aspects of government and open-ness will create a range of ideas for the scope of open government. These
will be clustered to build possible future scenarios, and highlight the areas where strategic choices will influence the
direction of open government.
The scope of open government arising from this session will be the foundation for the discussions in the subsequent
sessions in this workstream.
Open Government action plan – national and local government
Facilitator: Julian Carver
A video discussion (to be confirmed) with an international open government leader will kick off this session,
highlighting the key features of open government internationally. Following the video, we will share information on
examples of open government in NZ, and use this to generate ideas on what is needed to build Open Government momentum
within and outside government. Dependent on participants, this session may be split into two groups – what is needed at
the national level, and what is needed for local government.
Geospatial open data
Facilitator: Kevin Sweeney
Geo-coded data has been at the forefront of open government data because of the attractiveness to consumers and
developers, the experience in the areas of emergency recovery internationally, as well as in the Christchurch
earthquake, and the ease of use of map based tools. During this session, we will discuss how to build support for the NZ
geospatial strategy and a national Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI), and highlight current and potential uses of open
geospatial data.
Government procurement
Facilitator: Brett O’Riley
Government procurement is recognised as a major influence on the development of the IT industry, both within New Zealand
and internationally. The potential for government procurement to be more open, and to support a more open ecosystem, has
been recognised in the recent UK ICT strategy (http://bit.ly/lBp5PQ). This discussion will discuss ideas on how
government can work with the industry and the community to achieve increased openness.
Open data and licencing
Facilitator: Keitha Booth
In this session we will discuss two key aspects of open government data – what are the characteristics of open
government data, and how can we overcome any barriers to successful implementation?
The discussion is expected to cover licensing. NZGOAL, Creative Commons, Data quality, security and integrity, Data
pricing, and the classification of data open-ness (as proposed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee).
* on the web, open licence
** Machine-readable data
*** Non-proprietary format
**** RDF standards
***** Linked data
ENDS