Data and the city – accessibility and openness. a cybersalon paper on open data

This paper showcases examples of bottom–up open data and smart city applications and identifies lessons for future such efforts. Examples include Changify, a neighbourhood-based platform for residents, businesses, and companies; Open Sensors, which provides APIs to help businesses, startups, and individuals develop applications for the Internet of Things; and Cybersalon’s Hackney Treasures. a location-based mobile app that uses Wikipedia entries geolocated in Hackney borough to map notable local residents. Other experiments with sensors and open data by Cybersalon members include Ilze Black and Nanda Khaorapapong's The Breather, a "breathing" balloon that uses high-end, sophisticated sensors to make air quality visible; and James Moulding's AirPublic, which measures pollution levels. Based on Cybersalon's experience to date, getting data to the people is difficult, circuitous, and slow, requiring an intricate process of leadership, public relations, and perseverance. Although there are myriad tools and initiatives, there is no one solution for the actual transfer of that data.

© 2015 by the University Research Institute of Applied Communication (URIAC), the Editors & Authors
First published in 2015 by University Research Institute of Applied Communication (URIAC),
National & Kapodistrian University of Athens,
Athens, Greece
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. [CC BY-NC-ND 3.0]
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

Published as: Drakopoulou, Sophia, Pascoe, Eva, Greenaway, Benjamin, Moulding, James, Grossman, Wendy and Black, Ilze (2015) Data and the city – accessibility and openness. a cybersalon paper on open data. In: Hybrid City 2015 Data to the People: Proceedings of the 3rd International Biennial Conference. Theona, Iouliani and Charitos, Dimitris, eds. , Athens: URIAC