Nigel Shadbolt named as co-director of UK’s new Open Data Institute

The UK Government has announced up to £10m funding for a new world-leading Open Data Institute to innovate, exploit and research Open Data opportunities. It will be co-directed by Professor Nigel Shadbolt and Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

The new Institute will be based in Shoreditch, the newly designated ‘Tech City UK’ area of London, where there is a huge concentration of Web 2.0 start-ups, and it will involve business and academic institutions.

The Open Data Institute is intended to help demonstrate the commercial value of public data and the impact of open data policies on the realisation of this value. The Institute will also help develop the capability of UK businesses to exploit open data opportunities, with support from University researchers. It will help the public sector use its own data more effectively and it will engage with developers and the private and public sectors to build supply chains and commercial outlets for public data. The Government is to commit up to £10m over five years to support the Open Data Institute through the Technology Strategy Board – in a match-funded collaboration with industry and academic centres.

Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, Public Sector Transparency board member and new director of the ODI, said: “One of the reasons the Web worked was because people reused each other’s content in ways never imagined by those who created it. The same will be true of Open Data. The Institute will allow us to provide the tools, skills and methods to support the creation of new value using Open Government Data.”

Professor Nigel Shadbolt, Founding Partner of Seme4 Ltd, Head of the Web and Internet Science Group at the University of Southampton, Public Sector Transparency board member and new director of the ODI said:

“Data is the new raw material of the 21st century and the UK is world-leading in the release of Open Government Data. Open Government Data not only increases transparency and accountability but also creates economic and social value. The Institute will help business to realise this value and foster a generation of open data entrepreneurs.”

The new Institute is one of a number of measures that the Government announced today as part of a larger initiative to boost UK economic growth.

"Put in your postcode, out comes the data"

Nigel Shadbolt and Tim Berners-Lee in The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6920761.ece

“We all recognise the power of information. It guides our behaviour and decisions. It tells us when the trains run and when the roads are jammed, how schools, hospitals and police are performing. We live in an age in which the essential raw material is information; data with a context. It underpins our economy and our society.” ….

"Get ready for the web of linked data"

Wendy Hall in “Computing”

http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/comment/2252032/ready-web-linked-4866476

“The web has been a transformational technology and an incredibly powerful tool, today largely made up of linked documents. But as it continues to evolve and to achieve its full promise as a global information space, we need to link the data embedded in documents, databases, spreadsheets and wherever else it might be lurking. Linking data using new web standards will create an information fabric that will be even more powerful than that which we experience at the moment.” …