Open data - we've seen cool and useful apps, but where are the good government examples?

Tomorrow the ITS Innovation Stockholm Kista competition ends, a competition where service developers are encouraged to develop innovative solutions for more efficient travel and transport. It is clearly exciting that actors such as the City of Stockholm, the Swedish Transport Administration, SL, Kista Science City and the ITS Council are joining forces with SMHI, Eniro and Flygbussarna to make data available under a single interface so that developers can easily access the information they need. Not least when it is done in the form of an innovation procurement in competition form.

Anything that strengthens the case (increased availability of publicly owned data) is of course worthy of praise. So a big hurrah for that initiative.

In this context, it may nevertheless be worth mentioning one of the biggest challenges in creating incentives for public authorities to increase the accessibility of the data they are required to manage. Namely, that they themselves see a potential and self-benefit in switching to a more transparent and open management model.

There are examples, such as Sida's www.openaid.se, the Swedish Transport Agency's management model for the Road Traffic Register and the Norwegian Metrological Institute's and NRK's joint initiative at www.yr.no, but very few have attracted attention, which the eDelegation and SKL have also noted.

So isn't it time for a new competition in which the best examples of modern, transparent administration are thrust into the spotlight? Perhaps organized by the IT&Telecom companies' newly launched Council for Open Data together with eDelegationen and SKL?