Paris: 9 July 2010

Proactive open data innovation does get results. The Rennes city and metropolitan area has such results.

The April 2010 news from Rennes was that they were the first French community to strategically open up government transportation data. This pioneering step resulted in 5 transport apps using the open data in 3 weeks.

The proactive focus of Rennes on local open data ideas, issues and practices continues.

At LIFT France 2010 with Fing Conference, Hugues Aubin, Rennes city head of digital strategy, gave a presentation on opening up local data which captured the attention of the international audience. During his presentation, Hughes shared feedback on the Rennes’ experience and future plans.

Caroline Goulard on the actuvisu blog writes about Hughes’ presentation and commented that she was captivated by the presentation and Rennes’ accomplishments. These are the highlights of Caroline’s post about the presenation (full French text online) : Title: Opendata à Rennes: du volontarisme politique aux mass-users #lift10

• The Rennes open data story involves three categories of actors: administration, civil society and political leaders.

• Rennes has followed the international examples and in particular has been interested in the work by London and Melbourne. These two cities have been very focused taking steps such as introducing tools for developers, publicizing tools and releasing data sets.

• In March 2010, the city of Rennes and Rennes Kéolis, the network operator (STAR Service Transportation of Rennes) made available transportation data through a dedicated website. Examples of re-use based on this opening up of local transportation data by Rennes are already emerging.

• Rennes is planning to continue promoting re-use and is hosting a contest for creating services and promoting application which will take place during October 2010.

• Hughes observed that administrations want see a ROI on open data demonstrated. Administrations also can be skeptical and raise points as problems such as data from various departments is not necessarily interoperable and it is like they are isolated lakes. In addition, some databases are already leased or sold to third parties and generate licensing revenues for public agencies. Whereas, open to the public means giving anticipating future benefits of open data.

• Hughes discussed how initiating open data polices, need to have in place an ecosystem of urban services which can boost social and economic innovation from open data. Or, by linking isolated lakes a fertile stream can be created, which was very graphically explained.

• Mash ups with the open government data result in services that would never have emerged without the openness. Eleven mobile applications have already been created during the last two months in Rennes. The example Rennes Freewheel from Loubere Thibaut and Olivier Chatel is a good mash up example.

• Hugues Aubin described an impatient society and voluntary organisations stimulating open data initiatives. These are the people who demand dynamic data, calling for APIs in order to make mash ups – well informed citizens. The Rennes policy and work opening up data was greatly facilitated by citizen lobbying.

• Hughes wants to maintain citizen momenteum and organise events in the new Working Space which is to open in September -- Rennes (Rennes a Canteen) plus have workshops on data mash ups and meetings to educate all users of open data.

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Rémi Sussan also wrote about the Rennes presentation at the Lift 2010 Conference under the title: “Lift10 : Ouvrir Les Données… À Rennes” which was published on the Fing live site. Rémi ends with this comment (full French text online).

“Finally, we must also succeed in removing the brake of cultural constraint. The idea of completely open systems is a huge break with habits. But we notice that very often physical meetings of the various heads of departments and discussions with them can overcome many difficulties. As Jarmo Eskelinen said, the advantage of the lever opening data is certainly an opportunity to reintroduce the discussion and co-operation between departments.”

Related News

LIFT France 2010 with Fing

Rennes Métropole: 1st French Community to strategically open up government transport data

PSI Re-use in France: Overview and Recent Developments