Hamburg, 18 August 2011

(by Ton Zijlstra)

Momentum for open government data in Hamburg is building. The coming days will see two events where this topic is core to the agenda, and recent questions to the Hamburg Senate have yielded answers (pdf in German, and comments in German) that show Hamburg is engaging itself in making PSI re-use increasingly possible.

As the Hamburg Senate says, Hamburg is already providing a lot of PSI for re-use, but most of it is not yet in open data formats (machine readable and raw data). Nevertheless there is already a certain amount of data available such as general statistics, water quality data, air quality data, school data and data concerning the occurrence of cancer.

Hamburg is also part of a mixed federal/local working group on open government. This working group is currently writing a paper that will advice and formulate actions to promote open government data. On this paper a city strategy for Hamburg on open government data could be based.

The two events where open government data in Hamburg is on the agenda are:

25 August, Northern German e-Government Symposium

30 August, Open Data evening Hamburg