Government Operations committee  As the others have said, thanks so much for including me in this discussion. To reiterate, I think that although there will be huge challenges associated with grappling with the obvious benefits that could come out of open data, I strongly believe that one of the most important

Government Operations committee  Obviously privacy issues are huge with big data, never mind just open data. I have often felt you almost need a magna carta along with big data, and that would include notice that predictions based on big data had taken place, and what's been predicted, and how; an opportunity fo

Government Operations committee  I would like to point once again to engagement. I think lack of engagement of the citizenry is the biggest challenge that government faces today. I would see open data as a very useful tool to not only speak to the electorate but also to get opinion from them, and in doing so to

Government Operations committee  I'll start by talking about what I think is really necessary for the transformation of this opportunity for Canada, and that is our young people. I believe it's a matter of doing the best we can to produce the knowledge worker of the future. By that I mean not necessarily just en

Government Operations committee  I love the carrot and the stick idea. I think in general carrots work way better, so there have to be incentives. The thing that leapt to my mind is efficiencies. So if indeed the individual government department can actually see utilizing that data to drive efficiencies that are

Government Operations committee  It's an excellent question, and an excellent observation as well. It's very early stages for the ODI, the Open Data Institute. There was very definitely an inclination to do this inter-institutionally. I think the reason that Waterloo was selected is just because of the amount of

Government Operations committee  Excuse me for coming in, but MaRS has done a terrific job in Toronto, as has Communitech in Waterloo. We're working together, but what typically blocks us is the lack of venture capital to really take the initiative to the second stage of development.

Government Operations committee  I talked a little bit earlier about establishing roles and processes, and that's hopefully one of the underpinnings to the ODI, but once you have processes and roles established, then sharing with more international participants is facilitated.

Government Operations committee  Mark said it perfectly. I have nothing to add.

Government Operations committee  As highlighted in the SSHRC consultation document produced in October of last year, I believe we would benefit hugely in Canada from developing a more forward-looking digital research environment. Specifically that document calls for the development of a coordinated plan to estab

Government Operations committee  If your eventual goal is engagement, then there is nothing like asking someone to contribute to the dialogue in a real way to engage the individual constituents. The accuracy aside, I think it's a process that's well worth pursuing.

Government Operations committee  Thanks very much. There have been great remarks already that have taken a lot of the points that I was going to make. I would start off by saying that over the past 20 years, we've seen an awful lot of innovation, creativity, and disruption. Today we don't know exactly where o