[kictanet] Availing Public Data To The Public: Helping Ourselves

[Rad!]

Dear fellow list members and in particular Dr Ndemo,

Please have a look at this initiative by the British government
http://data.gov.uk/home, similar to the american one http://www.data.gov/

>From the home page

*Advised by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt and others,
> government are opening up data for reuse. This site seeks to give a way into
> the wealth of government data and is under constant development. We want to
> work with you to make it better.*



> *We’re very aware that there are more people like you outside of
> government who have the skills and abilities to make wonderful things out of
> public data. These are our first steps in building a collaborative
> relationship with you.*


I cannot think of a better way for the government to demonstrate
transparency, confidence in local talent, public private partnership and
harnessing local resources to realize economic growth, effective planning
and realization of vision 2030.

As the largest data collector, Government has a lot of information that it
does not (or will not) do anything with. Why not avail it to bright,
enterprising talent to make use of it. Analyze, cross reference and find
relationships with.


There is even a correspondng campaign where the British Government solicits
ideas from the public http://showusabetterway.com/. Here is a link of some
of the initiatives the public came up with
http://www.showusabetterway.co.uk/call/2009/02/new-year-progress-update.html


This to me is an idea whose time has come. It boggles the mind what analysis
can be done by given raw data like population, gender, education, crime,
geography, minerals, finance etc.

If the ingenuity of 4 kenyans is helping Haiti deal with its earthquakes (
http://www.haiti.ushahidi.com) what can the ingenuity of the entire private
sector do?
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