Thank you.
I would first like to thank you for inviting me. Today, I want to talk to you about the City of Ottawa's experience with the Open Data program.
The first question to ask ourselves is, what is open data for the City of Ottawa? For us, it was an opportunity to increase transparency, create awareness of the various parts of the organization, and engage our residents in improving our city.
About a year ago, we launched a huge Service Ottawa program. The idea was to improve services to our residents. Using open data was a means for us to tap into a segment of the community that volunteers their own time and creativity to improve the city and its services. So to the City of Ottawa, open data means more than offering data to the public in a machine-readable format.
Why are we doing it? When we look back at the reason for it, I guess we can say we are maximizing the value of the information we have in front of us. We clearly identified six benefits.
First, we are increasing the city-citizen engagement. We are drawing on the ideas and skills of our citizens to use our data to turn it into information benefiting all of us, from a social, cultural, and environmental point of view. We're tapping into Ottawa's large and diverse, highly educated population.
Second, making our data open encourages external involvement and fosters partnership through multiple facets of the community. The citizens of the city have demonstrated a strong dedication to volunteering in the community. In April of last year, I was privileged to attend what they call a hackerfest. At that session there were over 70 software developers willing to develop software for the city free of charge if we provided them with the open data. This is the kind of engagement that we're getting from our citizens.
Another benefit is economic development. We have a launched an Apps4Ottawa contest using our open data. We have received a tremendous number of applications. We have increased information and services to the tourism industry and to software development. It benefits our citizens and fosters entrepreneurship. When we provide our data, it is free of charge to anyone who wants to use it. As a result, they are able to develop an application, and if they are successful in commercializing it, it's good for them. We have also seen an increase in attendance in events put forward by the city and other organizations.
Another benefit is the collaboration and consolidation of the information. The data we provide from the city can be combined with other publicly available social information, so the developer can create unique and innovative ways for the public to use that information. It's also transparent to the residents. It provides the citizens with an insight into the operation of their city and additional clarity about available services. One of the apps that was developed is the park and rec application. You can download it to a smartphone and it will give you a list of all the parks and recreational facilities of the city. Click on any one of them and it shows where they are located and their hours of operation--that kind of information.
Another benefit is that we are reducing risk and costs. What we have seen is the beginning of fewer ATIP requests. Information is readily available for the public to download and use as they see fit. It allowed the interested and passionate in the community to experiment without restriction. They are normally in a government forum. It's also reducing the risk and the cost associated with software development from a city perspective, because it's the community that does the development and not the city.
Another benefit is that it has encouraged innovation. In the time of tight budgets and fiscal constraint, open data provides a creative solution to the delivery of municipal services and information in a cost-effective way. We have been able to tap into the development and graphic design community in a way that we never thought possible before.
So who benefits from open data? Along this journey we asked ourselves this essential question. While there are limitless numbers of groups that can benefit from this open data, we identified four main groups. The first one is the general public. By making our information available, they can make more use of our facilities and our services.
Another group is researchers. They have been able to access this data and provide interpretation of information using cycles that we do not have to produce. And the strangest things can happen. Public servants use our data to do their own work because it is more readily available.
The third group that benefits from open data are developers who enjoy building applications and making the data usable and valuable. At one of the IT subcommittee meetings at city hall, a group of developers came in and said if we gave them the data, they would develop the application free of charge for the city. In our experience, after a year that is exactly what happened. I will come back to that.
Also political activists can use this information. An example that comes to mind is a website from Ottawa called representme.ca. On that website you type in your postal code and it tells you who represents you at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels. You have access to the resumés of your representatives, everything they vote on, everything they do in the press, etc. So at least the public is very well informed of what the person is now doing.
What was our journey to open data? It began roughly a year ago when a council motion requested a review of the city policy on data dissemination. The council requested staff to make a recommendation to amend the policy to allow for open access to public data that will benefit the city and citizens.
So we began a series of consultations, first with the staff, the city residents, some of the academics, as well as the software community. In April 2010 council approved a motion to adopt the principle of open government. At that point we began to work with other cities in Canada, including Edmonton, Vancouver, and Toronto, eventually forming what we call the G-4, which I believe you have been briefed on at a previous session. The purpose was to collaborate on an open data framework and enhance our current data initiative and sharing in the area of standards, terms of use, and open data website design.
At the time we launched our website we made 17 data sets available for the public to use as they see fit. We asked the public to tell us which data set they would like us to use, and based on their feedback, we began to make those data sets available. We currently are offering 36 different data sets, including information about elections, roadways, rinks, museums, airports, and parks, just to name a few. What we found is that most of them fall into the category of geospatial information, like GPS, including recreational rinks, museums, pools and fields, event planning, and elections.
The website also served as a launching pad for the Apps4Ottawa contest. We are extremely pleased with the results of our Apps4Ottawa contest. With the community involvement, the awareness and excitement that was generated through the contest, which we believe is the most successful.... We know it's the most successful one in Canada, and I've been told, but haven't been able to validate, that it's probably the most successful one in North America.
There were two parts to our contest. The first encouraged people to develop an application using our open data or any open data available from any government organization. As well there was an area where people could submit ideas. In other words, if you do not have the technical background to develop an app but you have an idea that you think could be good for the residents, you can suggest that idea and somebody else can pick it up and develop the application accordingly. A significant number of the apps that were developed were based on ideas submitted by our residents to other residents.
Media interest remains extremely high as we prepare to announce the winners next week, on February 15. We are now focusing our efforts on sustainment, to support the long-term vision.
In summary, the steps we went through were to strategize on how to plan and create awareness. It is all about strong governance and community engagement. We have engaged the public every step of the way, from day one. We did public consultation on open data. When it came time to place the ads for our contest, we had a public session. They told us what the categories should be and who should be on the judging panel, and, as funny as it may seem, there is nobody technical on the judging panel. It is really for the residents and not a technical showpiece. We engaged the public, as I said, and we also engaged the universities and colleges to foster partnerships with our program.
We involved the media in the committee from day one. We held public consultations. We also participated, as I've said, in events in the city to promote the open data environment.
We executed that and then we showcased our success. We gave an example of the application, and we mitigated the risk. There are always questions about privacy and so on, so we put a group in place to review the data before it is published, to make sure we respect the Privacy Act and other aspects.
In summary, right now we are working on maintaining our partnerships, both with the public and those internal to the city, and we are in the process of integrating open data into our business model. That has become a day-to-day activity for us.
In closing, for us, open data has been exciting and a worthwhile journey for the city. We have realized many social and economic benefits, and we have developed better service for our citizens with minimal investment.
We always need to keep in mind that we are here to serve the public, and the goal of open data is to remove the barriers we have to accessing this information, respecting privacy and sensitivity concerns while facilitating access to this information for us and the community to leverage the data and improve community experience and stimulate economic growth.
At this point, I would like to thank the Honourable Shawn Murphy, committee chair, and the members of the standing committee for inviting us here today.