With this Data Dive we bring together data owners (cities, tourist services, counties, …) and interested developers and designers in an informal setting to investigate the growth potential in Flanders. As well we want to make an inventory of upcoming projects with a focus on more and better publishing of data. At the same time we want to frame the needs and wishes of the developer community.

Main aim is a constructive dialogue to see where we can make jumps together with a bunch of various actors.

When and Where?

Thursday, July 4, 2013, 18h00-20h00

DOK Kantine, Koopvaardijlaan and Afrikalaan, 9000 Gent

More information and registration here.

Note: Tourism Flanders offers food and beverage for the hungry amongst us!

Apps for Flanders is part of Apps for Europe, a European program established by European Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Apps for Europe wants to encourage governments in 10 different EU Member States to open datasets, and in the meanwhile create and stimulate the social and economic impact of open data. In Flanders this story is lead by the Flemish ICT Organisation (V-ICT-OR), the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) and iMinds-Multimedia Lab.

Earlier, successful programming contests took place in Flanders where opened datasets served as the basis for the development of new digital applications. In previous editions participants work with data sets from local and central governments as Ghent, Antwerp and the Flemish government, but also from a thematic perspective, such as geographic information and labor market data. During Apps for Flanders, we organize a business lounge, where selected apps and the teams behind it are getting inspired to find out new business models and coached by experts. In the afternoon we have a pitching session where the jury selects the three best apps!

The program: 9u30 -9u50: Warming-up: sketch up of the different actors in the open data field (Hans Tubbax – BICC – Thomas More)

9u50 – 10u30: Get inspired: session on business models for open data ( Flanders DC)

10u45-11u30: Coaching session: selected winners from earlier Apps For X events are coached on their business model to gain economical valorization.

11u30 – 12u00: Plenair (Open Data Day): Keynote

12u00 – 13u45: Lunch and preparation time

13u45 – 15u15: Pitching time

15u15-16u00: Deliberation of the jury

16u00: Wrap up Open Data Day and Award Ceremony

Extra information:

Subscripition for the event itself: www.opendataforum.be

Venue: Boudewijngebouw, Boudewijnlaan 30, 1000 Brussel

Contact:

Raf Buyle V-ICT-OR raf.buyle@v-ict-or.be

Pieter Colpaert OKFN / iMinds pieter@okfn.be

Mathias Van Compernolle OKFN mathias@okfn.be

It has become a tradition that OKFN Belgium plays a part in Random Hacks of Kindness: a weekend where programmers hack for a better world. OKFN Belgium will be present with a couple of Geospatial datasets from the Flemish provincial tourism organization. The datasets are on their way to be opened: all horseback riding paths in Flanders, all bike routes and all hikers’ routes.

On 1-2 June 2013, the EJC and De Persgroep, the leading media company in the Flemish/Dutch media landscape, will be hacking with the coders and programmers at the Random Hacks of Kindness hackathon in Belgium.

In the past years, we were confronted with a various kinds of natural/man-made disasters in the world. While a number of digital tools support the newsgathering process, a big challenge remains for journalists to quickly mine the relevant crowdsourced contents when unexpected events such as shootings and extreme weather conditions threaten peoples’ lives.

Better communication ecosystem would lead into more effective process of disaster mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. Information is a commodity that is needed in order to sustain human lives when crises and disasters occur. Needless to mention, journalists play an important role in providing accurate information to the public and disaster-affected communities.

At the hackathon, the organisers would like to create the foundation for a sustainable, open framework where news journalists can find the relevant news and social media contents in real-time. It will be a first step forward to establish a newsgathering/ content-mining tool that can be used by various newsrooms, including small/medium-sized ones with limited resources.

Want to be part of this? Register now!

You can find the licenses over here (Dutch). These licenses are going to be used by Flemish government organisations to publish a lot of data in the coming years. Problems or remarks can still be sent, as the “version 1″ on the document is implying.

OKFN Belgium wants to bring to the attention a couple of issues with the 3 last licenses. Datasets released under these licenses do not comply with the “Open” Definition and therefore cannot be called Open Data. They will not be able to be re-used in mash-ups, will not be able to be added to Wikipedia or Open Street Map, and will not help the world’s open knowledge any further. We do however understand that these licenses are needed as an intermediary step towards real Open Data. We hope however that most organisations will choose the CC0 license or the Open Data License.

Member states of the European Union have endorsed new rules for opening up publicly-funded data to developers, businesses and citizens.

The 27 countries agreed on the rule change on Wednesday, according to the European Commission, which is behind the proposed revision of a 2003 directive on public sector information. If the European Parliament adds its stamp of approval, national governments will then transpose the changes into their laws sometime in the next 18 months or so.

What’s the proposition?

The proposition gives developers, businesses and citizens the right to get their hands on public data at low cost or for free. For example, they will be able to use data from museums, libraries and archives for the first time. Public sector bodies will only be able to charge marginal costs for sharing their data, and will also have to be more transparent about their charges. They will also be encouraged to make their data available in machine-readable formats.

Added value?

What’s this thing with opening data? Open data are constructed with public money and become in this way a public ‘good’. The idea of opening data sets by governmental bodies is that it makes it possible to create social and economical impact. For example it’s a chance to bring more transparency in the relation between government and citizens. But we believe it’s as well low-hanging fruit in the creation of economical growth via innovation.

To be continued!

Read more about it on the website of the European Commission                                                                   

During the summer, a lot of companies hire students for a 1 month job. A student will work on a project that no one had time for before. Rumour has it that when you hire students, only 10 percent of the students are going to deliver something worthwhile. After the job, students go back to studying and the work is left untouched until the next summer, where the new students may decide to do it all over again.

Open Summer of code is raising the bar. We believe that using modern management techniques# every student can be the 10 percent. Per team of 4 or 5 students, 1 freelancer from inside OKFN Belgium is going to be managing one or more teams extensively. This leads to the ultimate learning experience for the students, while still coming up with the best they could make for the time given.

Open Summer of code is going to be organised for the third time. Previous events were called iRail Summer of code (#iSoc11 and #iSoc12).

The students are sponsored by external companies. Sponsoring goes from €2,800 to €11,200. The company may sponsor an idea of their own, or may sponsor an OKFN Belgium project.

Apps for Ghent has been organised for the third time. It is the ideal moment for citizens of the city of Ghent to show that Open Government Data can make the life of citizens easier, better or more fun. This edition welcomed 15 teams. The teams invented concepts from a smarter government service, to participation and sustainable energy.

The organisers (OKFN Belgium, the City of Ghent, iMinds, Ghent Web Valley and Ghent living lab) are very satisfied with this edition. Apart from the contest, it has shown to be an excellent place to network as well.

Apps for Ghent is not the only Apps for X event. Soon there will be Apps for VDAB, Apps for Flanders, Apps for Geo, Apps for Culture and many more. A full list can be found in our calendar.

The laureates

The local jury awarded Sumocoders with the first prize for “how busy is it now”, a tool that analyses different data sources to estimate which squares are too crowded.

The second prize went to the team 9K, a student team from the Artvelde Hogeschool. With “the city is your playground”, they created a tool which can be used to crowdsource city development projects in a very nifty way. 9K will be present during the open Summer of code Ghent which we organise during the first 3 weeks of July.

The international jury, with jury members from Russia, Greece, The Netherlands and France, awarded a student team from the university of Ghent with the Apps for Europe prize. The underlying message was of course to make their “find the nearby pharmacy that is opened” app available on a European scale.

Essent.be support Apps for Ghent with their data, but also awarded the team RMϞRF the Energy prize for their app Enerxia. A game which raises awareness amongst citizens about their energy consumption.

Finally, there was the TEDxGhent prize for the best presentation. This prize went to 9K. The team has been awarded a speaking slot at TEDxGhent, the 22d of June 2013.

The team 9K receives the TEDxGhent prize

Communication is key in so many projects, and especially in community driven projects like The DataTank. That’s why in the past we have organized some meetings to see if our project was still aligned with the needs of our stakeholders. The feedback we’ve gotten from these meetings were picked up in our 2012 road map and implemented as good as possible. Now, in 2013 we’re proud to announce that, not only do we have a new repository and approach for our project, but we’re also involved in exciting open data projects.

To communicate the changes that will arise from this, and to explain what benefits and functionalities the stakeholders can expect this year, we’re organizing another user group meeting on March 13. As always, feedback is key on these meetings, as the stakeholders themselves will use the software to enable open data policies and projects.

Open data is starting to rise to the attention of not only the large cities such as Ghent or Antwerp, but also starting to tickle the inspiration of smaller cities and villages. It’s key that this year not only large cities get their hands dirty with our open data tool, but that we provide a package for smaller villages and organizations to make open data flourish. An incentive that makes the crowd ready is our very own Apps for X. The events that arise from the Apps for X incentive, such as Apps for Geo, Apps for Culture etc. should show the value that open data can offer, and make people warm to start new ideas around open data usage and apps. With that said I’m most certain 2013 will become a very important year for open data, and we at OKFN Belgium are here to help making it happen!

The students work from two central locations, what transfer of knowledge consolidates and provides an extra dose of inspiration.

To the participating companies will be asked to deliver a project and to make a financial contribution of 3,000 euros to support the student employees. As a result, companies will not only have a working proof of concept back. Moreover, they make contacts with a group of skilled and motivated IT students. Since all code is written in an open model, the knowledge and innovation is also accessible.

On Wednesday, March 13^th, an information session for interested companies to participate will be organized. This will take place in Bruges at Howest – Campus Rijselstraat (Rijselstraat 5, 8200 Bruges).

Register on http://bit.ly/summerofcode2013.

The organization of the Summer of Code 2013 is a collaboration of the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN), JCI Bruges and Howest & KHBO.

The Summer of Code happens during the first three weeks of July, from 1 to 19 July.

For this event, the initiating people behind Trissen opened their own data. Trissen.be is an information portal for students that serves as a digital one-stop-shop in Leuven.

This Apps for Students code day fits within the Apps for Europe program, where selected ideas can move on to a competition on European level.  As an international umbrella of several hackathons and co-creation events, Apps for Europe is organized by 19 organizations in 10 European countries. Main goal is to strengthen the possibilities of open data into business opportunities.

More information about the program, the jury and submission for Apps for Students: here