Lake Macquarie City Council in New South Wales is harnessing the power of open data.
Every day, data is being generated about how our cities function, how businesses operate and how we work and play. Yet, less than 0.5 percent of all data is analysed and used.
What does it mean for data to be ‘open’ and who might benefit? When data collected by governments is stripped of any personal information and made free of other controls, such as copyright, it can become open data, a highly valuable resource for local communities, large and small.
Around the world, all levels of government are exploring different ways of making this resource freely available. In Illinois, the City of Evanston partnered with data platform Accela to share restaurant health inspection information online with local diners, so they can make safer decisions about where to eat.
In Australia, a weather alert service is drawing information from the Bureau of Meteorology to provide an early warning service for fire bans, storms and flooding.
Lake Macquarie City Council has developed an online tool that allows residents to find out which waste collection service – recycling, green waste or general – is operating in their neighbourhood that week, and lists recent development approvals issued near their home.
These are examples of open data being cleverly collected, analysed, ‘mashed up’ and ‘pushed out’ for the benefit of people and their daily lives, and they herald an emerging role for Local government in the digital era.
When developing the Lake Mac Smart City, Smart Council Digital Economy Strategy, Lake Macquarie City Council asked the community how it could use technology to make the City a better place to work and live, and make Council more open and efficient. In response, the Council was repeatedly told to provide open data.
Council staff echoed this call for improved access to city data – when data is readily available, it is easier for them to go about their job.
To help understand what an open data initiative could look like, Council collaborated with Idea Bombing Newcastle to host ‘Hacktivate the City’ as part of the Hunter Innovation Festival.
Council’s Digital Economy Strategy Project Officer, Tom Boyle, said, “Hacktivate the City brought the community together to share their ideas on what information or datasets they would like to see open and why, as well as allowing Council to learn more about open data itself and how other agencies, businesses and start-ups are using this information to produce innovative products.”
Investigating open data and making more data available to the community is one action the Council identified as part of its Lake Mac Smart City, Smart Council – Digital Economy Strategy 2016-2020.
