Madrid: 24 June 2010

On the 9th June 2010, Madrid graciously welcomed participants from throughout Europe to the PSI 2010 Meeting. It was an opportunity for in person discussions and provided a focal point to discuss and share experiences on re-using government data for the community from business and citizen perspectives.

The meeting theme was challenging: ‘Realising the Value of Public Sector Information’. Accordingly, the presentations and discussions were engaging, provocative and stimulating.

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Proyecto Aporta has published an informative blog post discussing the meeting, entitled: ‘PSI Meeting 2010: poniendo en valor la reutilización de la información del sector público’ (PSI 2010 putting value in the re-use of public sector information). The blog post states: (approximate English translation below) (Spanish text online):

“On the 9th June, the PSI Meeting 2010 "Realising the value of Public Sector Information" was held in Madrid. It was a meeting aimed at evaluating the economic and social impact of liberating policies on the re-use of European public sector data in Europe.

The event, organized jointly by Project Aporta and the ePSIplatform featured speakers and moderators who opened interesting reflections on the current outlook, challenges and prospects for the re-use of public sector information in the coming years.

Both the contributions made by the roundtable panel speakers on discussing issues and questions from the many participants demonstrated the richness, complexity and diversity of approaches and interests surrounding the development of strategies for re-using sector public information.

All of these discussions took place within the framework of the Information Society and new business models and services based on quantification of the economic potential and social value of re-using government data.

The PSI Meeting 2010 served as a meeting point for the exchange of experiences, good practices and ideas among participants from the public, private and civil society, and to encourage further progress in the promising field of re-using public sector information.

Thus, in line with the message of Kristof de Meulder, Agence du patrimoine immatériel de l’État (APIE) France, today more than ever it is essential to identify, understand and meet the needs of professional re-use.

Some figures on the PSI Meeting

The figures for participation in Madrid show that the re-use of public sector information is a matter of great interest in Europe and Spain.

In fact, this activity is configured as an increasingly important part of the road map for our continent from political, legal and technological perspectives.

Alberto Ortiz de Zarate, Director of Citizen and Public Administration in the Basque Government was clear on this point: institutional leadership must be accompanied by a firm political commitment to further "experimental models in beta and more permanent" for releasing public sector data "economically and, above all, fast."

These figures, by way of example, highlight the interest generated by the meeting.

180 representatives and professionals from the main areas related to re-use:

• Public administration (36 percent)
• Technology transfer companies (34.3 percent)
• Information (20 percent)
• Legal consultancy and R & D (4.4 percent)
• Education (5.2 percent)

- More than a dozen countries were represented by speakers and meeting participants.

Monitoring the event on-line

Do not overlook the great response from the community for re-use that took place throughout the meeting on Social Networks and in particular through Twitter.

In that regard, we can cite the more than 650 tweets in just six hours and released by this communication channel - about 70 different users using the official hash tag label #PSI_VALUE. We can only thank everyone for their active and creative participation.

In short, this enriching experience constitutes a stimulus for further work and breaking new ground in the field of opening up and re-using public sector information.

As per the comment by Javier Hernández-Ros, Head of the Unit Access to Information, European Commission, said during his presentation, there has been "an immense amount of change in many European countries, although no one can say that it has reached the end of the road. Much remains to be done."

Note:

Proyecto Aporta and the ePSIplatform collaborated to co-sponsor the PSI 2010 meeting. Work by both organisations on publishing meeting documentation (forthcoming) including the meeting video and multimedia materials currently being edited and a written report is in progress, as well reflecting the post meeting news stories and online discussions about the meetings taking place on various online forums.

Related News and Information

PSI Meeting 2010: Preliminary Report

An open invitation for the Open Data and PSI re-use Communities

Project Aporta’s PSI Meeting 2010 ‘Participation’ Forum is Online

Madrid PSI 2010 Meeting: Roundtable Panels

Madrid PSI Meeting 2010: New Date: 9 June