Semantic Days 2011

Keynote by State Secretary Inger-Anne Ravlum at Semantic Days 2011. The conference focuses on development, use and benefits of open data and Semantic Web technologies.

First of all, I would like to thank you for inviting me to open Semantic Days 2011, hosted for the first time, I’ve been told, in Oslo. And I would like to join [David] in welcoming all the international guests to our capital. I am also bringing greetings from our minister, who regrets that parliamentary duties made her unable to attend this conference.

Opening up public sector data holds a great potential. But public sector data will be of no use to anyone without a proper way of presenting them. Semantic technologies are among the most promising technologies when it comes to handling data. I hope that this event will bring the understanding of these technologies and their application up to a new level.

Opening up and providing access to data in the public sector is important for stimulating innovation and creating new applications.

One of my favorite examples: The Minister of Culture is in possession of a database with information about the owner and the location of almost all football fields and other sport centers in Norway. It was made available to everybody last summer. Only a few weeks went by before someone had made an iPhone and Android app, making it possible to view a map plotting out sport centers nearby.

This is only one example, of course. The Norwegian public sector manages a vast amount of data. A lot of this is data that shouldn’t be published at all, especially personal data, trade secrets and all kinds of classified information. It is obvious that information on a person’s diseases, as well as his or her political and religious affiliation, or, for that matter, the video feed from surveillance cameras, should be kept away from the general public.

Over the last few years, our ministry has focused on unrestricted data. Unrestricted data is the low-hanging fruit of public sector information. It does not require great efforts to make many of these data sets available for reuse. This is the reason why we have decided to focus on unrestricted data. This is the beginning of making all public sector information accessible in machine readable formats.

At this point, you might perhaps expect the government to announce a “free-for-all”-policy of all unrestricted data in the public sector, on line with announcements by both Barack Obama and Gordon Brown.

There are at least two reasons for not doing so. The first one is technological, and, I might say, conceptual of nature.

Despite all the years we have been working on access to public sector information and freedom of information laws, the concept of publishing raw data in machine readable formats for reuse in the private sector is rather new. The discussion of in which formats the information should be made available, has just barely begun. Fifty years ago, a piece of paper was a piece of paper. Today, data can be found in innumerable different formats. Hence, the technologies related to open data cannot be said to have matured sufficiently for the Norwegian government to declare which one to use.

In addition to this --- and here the semantics come into play --- the data is not necessarily ready to be published. We still have far to go in structuring and organizing the information in a way that makes it more flexible for reuse. This is something you know a great deal more about than I do. I trust you to come up with a solution to the problem of comparing “salary” and “income” and making sense of data representing these notions…

The second reason is that many public agencies are uncertain as to what will happen to ”their” data as they are being reused. This includes what possible consequences such reuse may have for their public image and what kind of obligations they may or may not undertake when making data available for reuse. Overcoming this largely “cultural” obstacle requires a long and painstaking promotional effort on our part.

The EU financed MEPSIR study from 2007 found that the potential market size of public sector information in EU25 + Norway would be approximately 27 billion euro. We do not have corresponding numbers for Norway – and we know from experience that such estimates are difficult to make with a grade of accuracy, as nobody really are able to calculate the future. We are working on getting some estimates, but we will also need your help. You may help us by providing examples of good applications reusing public sector data bringing value to their users.

We therefore are expecting a certain development within the field of open data in the coming years, and I believe conferences like Semantic Days are an important catalyst in this development.

The Norwegian government will continue its work on open data and reuse of public sector information. Open data will be a part of the new Norwegian Digital Agenda, that we have begun working on. The main motivation for this Digital Agenda is job creation, innovation and economic growth. In addition to open data, issues like broadband, digital content and participation will be important parts of this agenda.

As regards open data, however, we will continue to focus on the low-hanging fruit. And there are three main steps taken to ensure that we are steadily moving forward:

First of all, we are working on a guide on open data. The handbook is intended for public sector agencies, and will --- hopefully --- be helpful for information publishers.

Secondly, we have created a Norwegian License for Open Data. The new license, which is now in public consultation until August 10, is a fairly liberal license, and specifically compatible with internationally renowned licenses like the Creative Commons and the Open Government License.

Thirdly, we are planning to launch the Norwegian data catalogue data.norge.no in September! Data.norge.no will be a comprehensive database with descriptions of public sector information available for reuse in Norway. In addition to this, the web site is intended to be a meeting place for people interested in open data. I encourage you, therefore, to become a part of the open data community in Norway - look up the blog on data.norge.no! And if you’re on Twitter, follow the hashtag #offdata.

Thank you so much for your attention.