Copenhagen, 4 November 2010

Today the DataCamp was held in Copenhagen. The Danish Minister for Science started the day and challenged the developers present to build applications re-using PSI in one day. This to show the potential to various government departments and agencies of what citizens and organizations can do with public data.

The participating developers were individually invited by the organizing ITST, and it wasn't an open event. This to ensure that the goal of the event, convincing other government departments of the power of open government data, could be reached with ensured quality of the developers and in a 'safe' environment for the government bodies involved. This would also allow these government bodies to bring data sets with them for the event.

Judging from the twitter messages the day was a success, with resulting applications at this moment being pitched in 60 second presentations, varying from finding available parking space in the city, to detecting oil spills and smart measurement of energy use. The Minister of Science Sahl-Madsen said she was "thrilled and excited" to see all the presented results. She also says she thinks it's needed to focus on the barriers and obstacles hindering the publishing of data for re-use, and asks for input on this from all stakeholders.

We will be following up to hear what results have been reached, and how Denmark will move forward with open government data.