Open Data Initiatives, Mobile Devices & Geo-Applications
Presented by Susan Romeo-Gilbert, Principle Platform Strategist, Microsoft
As the concept of Open Government picks up momentum around the world, many Governments are considering how best to implement open data projects. What does it take to make data open and accessible? How does GIS data become useful to citizens and developers, and how does this drive innovation and citizen engagement? In this session, the Microsoft open software team will demonstrate how the transformational power of open data coupled with cloud computing can enable Open Government through easier/quicker deployment, better efficiency and higher citizen engagement.
The team will show examples of live Government projects for visualizing and interacting with Open GIS Data from around the globe. The examples of Open Data projects are centred on the 3 primary principles of Open Government – Transparency, Participation, and Collaboration. We will see Microsoft technologies in use and enabling different capabilities, as well as introduce basic Open Government and Open Data concepts. A number of open data application examples are provided to demonstrate utilizing Microsoft with other technologies, in different platform configurations. [Gov 2.0, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Windows Azure for Cloud Computing: On- & Off- Premise, Mashups, Crowdsourcing]
The presentation will show examples of open data applications, built on mobile platforms, taking advantage of GPS and geo-location capabilities and integration with social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook, to give a richer real-time user experience. It will also touch on “The Open Data Protocol” (OData), a Web protocol for querying and updating data that provides a way to unlock your data and free it from silos that exist in applications today. OData applies and builds upon Web technologies such as HTTP, Atom Publishing Protocol (AtomPub) and JSON, to provide access to information from a variety of applications, services, and stores. OData is being used to expose and access information from a variety of sources including, but not limited to, relational databases, file systems, content management systems and traditional Web sites.