杏吧原创

Freely available information has the power to make and save money and enhance our daily life, says Nigel Shadbolt of the Open Data Institute

Editorial: 鈥�Don鈥檛 let internet firms hoard the wealth of big data鈥�

Organisations making their data available to all seems 鈥渘ice鈥�, but does it have real value?
It has real social and economic value. Big firms are realising they don鈥檛 employ all the world鈥檚 smart people, and small, agile companies are using open data to create services that people really want.

Why did you set up the ?
and I wanted to support, encourage and build the demand for open data, to show people the potential for innovating with it.

The institute is a year old. How is it doing?
We鈥檙e leading the world. We are launching 10 international nodes 鈥� the idea is to franchise institutes that sign up to a set of principles and standards. We also develop training and data standards, help organisations publish better open data and have launched a data-quality certificate. And we are incubating 10 start-up companies.

What kind of things do these start-ups do?
Our first success was with data analytics company Mastadon C, which used public information to look at doctors鈥� prescribing habits for cholesterol-lowering drugs. They found that by switching from brand names to generic drugs, doctors could save the NHS more than 拢200 million a year.

Have you looked at other public resources?
Another start-up, , is unifying timetables and live departure and disruption information for UK bus, rail, underground, ferry and tram services. It uses feeds from many organisations to provide an app for travellers and services for local authorities. A recent in London 鈥� where Transport for London has made lots of its data open 鈥� showed that millions of journeys are being altered to avoid disruptions on the basis of this information. Time savings alone add up to 拢58 million a year.

Is there a danger of creating more big companies that will turn into monopolies?
We want companies that use open data to make money, and they will try to defend their patches. But if we leave the data open, others can exploit it too. Nobody can own or monopolise the data. I think we can make more money and create more benefit by making data open, and I鈥檓 sure we will even dislodge a few monopolies along the way.

How would that work?
For example, Dun & Bradstreet is a world leader in selling corporate intelligence. The information mostly comes from public databases. Our start-up has created an open database of 49 million companies and the links between them. It is an amazing resource, and it鈥檚 free.

How much impact can open data have?
We鈥檙e at an inflection point. Data once guarded for assumed but untested reasons is now open, and we鈥檙e seeing benefits. We know where peer-to-peer lenders are putting their money, and from police data we are learning which crimes happen where. Organisations get efficiency gains and more innovation, and transparency builds trust. Open data represents a major change, but in many areas it could become the new default.

Read more: 鈥�Open data projects are life-savers in developing countries鈥�

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淭ime to let it all out鈥�