Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Paschal Donohoe T.D, today (Tuesday 20th June) launched a public consultation on the draft national Open Data Strategy 2017-2022.

The Minister for Data Protection and the Government Data Forum are hosting the Data Summit on 15 and 16 June this year in the Convention Centre Dublin and the Open Data Unit is delighted to have the opportunity to host an exhibition stand at the event to highlight the Open Data Portal and Open Data Initiative generally. A short exhibitor talk will be given on the portal at 13.15pm on Thursday 15th June.

The Summit brings together a range of stakeholders, nationally and internationally, to discuss some of the key issues arising from the ever expanding role of data in modern life.

The Open Data Unit were delighted when the national Open Data portal was shortlisted for an eGovernment award this year and were thrilled when it won ‘best award’ in the general category. The Ireland eGovernment Awards ceremony took place in Dublin Castle on Friday, 26th May where the awards were presented by Minister Simon Harris.

As the data visualisation pioneer John Tukey stated one of the great things about working as a statistician is that you get to play in everyone’s back yard! For the open data engagement fund I selected two back yards - crime and pedestrian footfall in Dublin.

We are delighted that the national Open Data portal has been shortlisted for an eGovernment award and eagerly await the outcome of the 2017 award results.  The ceremony is taking place on Friday 26th May in Dublin Castle.  A full list of the shortlisted projects can be seen here  and we wish them all the best of luck on the day.

Open Data Team

As part of the Engagement Fund project, Open Knowledge Ireland has run the first of a series of 4 citizen workshops focused on exploring use cases of open data using hospital waiting lists recently published as open data, together with other health related data.

The workshop was a real success and we had a lot of professional talent in the room that we are now engaging with on an individual basis.

As one outcome of the workshop a participant has written a first person account of attending the workshop and the publication is getting traction on social media.

Discover some of the uses that can be made from open data by taking a look at our ‘Showcase’ page. Data users including government can re-use government Open Data datasets to build new apps, websites or other useful products.

The Apps4Gaps ( http://apps4gaps.ie ) competition has successfully run each year from 2014 through to 2016. It encourages participants to use open datasets from the Irish Open Data Portal ( http://data.gov.ie ) to produce apps. It is run as a partnership between the Central Statistics Office (CSO) and the Insight Centre for Data Analytics with a prize fund of €5,000.

The Marine Institute hosted two “Geo Open Data Publishing Best Practices in a Day” training courses funded under the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform sponsored Open Data Engagement Fund at the Marine Institute offices in Galway (February 10th 2017) and Dublin (February 21st 2017).

Geo Open Data is Open Data that contains a geographic or location feature, reference or attribute; has an open licence; and can be accessed, used, adapted and shared subject only to attribution.

Attendance: Emer Coleman (Chair), Dennis Jennings, Denis Parfenov, Sandra Collins, Cronan McNamara, Dietrich Rebholz, Sue Duke, Barry Lowry, Ashling Cunningham

Apologies: Andrew O’Sullivan, Daithí Mac Síthigh

Secretariat: Evelyn O'Connor, Fiona Morley Clarke, Marian Beakey