The Italian ministry for public administration and innovation announced a national open government data strategy today.

The strategy among others contains the following three activities:

• the launch of a national data portal on http://dati.gov.it/
• the official launch of the Apps4Italy competition, on http://www.appsforitaly.org/
• the launch of a platform showcasing applications based on public data, on http://apps.gov.it, details still unknown.

This is good news for the Italian open data community! After having seen various local and regional initiatives launched, with the Piemonte region at the front, it is a very encouraging development to now see a national approach to open government data as well.

Use the hashtag #opengovitalia to participate in the on-line discussion on these developments on Twitter.

(source: an e-mail by Lorenzo Benussi on the OKF Italy mailing list.)