Innovation Tag: Open Data

The Transparency+ Portal is a digital platform of the Portuguese state, where citizens can access easy-to-read and updated information on public spending in an accessible way, combining data science and storytelling. Launched in 2021, the platform is now a reference resource for monitoring European funds, State and local budgets, and public contracts. In a world often perceived through lens of mis/disinformation, Transparency+ is building trust by nurturing civic engagement and open government.

MedeINN arose from the need to innovate in the government sector, in a city that had been developing its innovation capabilities in all other sectors. For this reason, and under Innovative State premise, we seek to connect the Mayor's Office of Medellín´s challenges with entrepreneurs and researchers capacities. This has been achieved after a redesign of a Public Procurement for Innovation methodology, which enables Open Innovation in the government sector.

The Violence Early-Warning System (ViEWS) is a publicly available data-driven forecasting system at the frontier of research that generates monthly predictions of conflict fatalities up to 36 months ahead – throughout Africa and the Middle East. The project launched in 2017 to help policy-makers and practitioners plan anticipatory action and humanitarian interventions with a transparent and evidence-based approach. It is based at Uppsala University and Peace Research Institute Oslo.

With the Quality Tools an organisation can evaluate, monitor and compare the quality and use of its services within and between organisations. The tools include a Self-assessment, Customer Feedback and Utilisation Rate Measurement tool and are free of charge. The tools were developed primarily for public sector organisations to help them develop customer-oriented digital services and improve knowledge-based management. On a national level the tools provide data on the state of digitalisation.

"Why did I fail? How should I develop my career?" To address such concerns, we developed the Digital Mentor Service of National Qualification. It leverages massive data on national qualification tests to identify each individual's weaknesses and why they fail. It also provides personalized information by matching examination history with jobs and training offered by government agencies. Supporting test takers from skills assessment and development to job placement.

Countries in the Western Balkans created digital infrastructure to support transparent business operation and prevent fraud in their Common Regional Market. The official registries from 5 countries in the Western Balkans created a digital platform, connecting all official legal and financial data about companies, connected entities, blocked bank accounts and sanctioned persons, bridging different legislations, languages and currencies. The platform won the 2022 OECD/SIGMA/ReSPA award.

Governments around the world are censoring the Internet, but how can we document, track, and respond to Internet censorship events? In 2022, the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) launched the Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (MAT) which hosts one of the largest open datasets on Internet censorship to date. In real-time, new measurements are published from around the world, enabling researchers, journalists, and human rights defenders to track and respond to censorship worldwide.

Digital transformation is a long-term journey that involves complex changes. One of the challenges is how we evaluate the progress. We are inspired by the quote, "If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it". Most of Catalonia's municipalities cannot do a digital assessment. The Digital Maturity Index provides an evaluation turnkey solution for local governments. It is based on open data, and it has a clear focus on public value impact.

Metroverse is an urban economy navigator built at the Growth Lab at Harvard University. It is based on over a decade of research on how economies grow and diversify and offers brand new insights on a city's growth prospects by placing its existing technological capabilities and knowhow at the heart of how diversification unfolds. Metroverse was built using a user-centered design process to help city leaders, policymakers and researchers grapple with 21st-century urbanization challenges.

In COMo, the CO2 concentration (CO2 = Carbon Dioxide) serves as a measure for indoor air quality and aerosol pollution; the latter correlates with the potential (COVID) viral load. Objective CO2 readings via networked sensors enable operators to control the indoor air quality and thus reduce the risk of infection for visitors. Published data allow visitors to make decisions about visiting the facility. All content is available under open source licenses (MIT, BSD, Creative Commons).