Open Government Data Camp 2011 in Warsaw: OGD is spreading…

The OGD Camp 2011 took place in Warsaw on 20 and 21 October with nearly 400  participants  from 41 nations, including Switzerland. Just under a year ago, the first international OGD Camp in London was still entirely dominated by the British government’s OGD offensive (see). In Warsaw, it became visible how quickly the international OGD movement has broadened within a single year. The colourful and diverse event was opened by a video message from the EU Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, in which she underlined the enormous economic potential  of Open Government Data and announced the publication of a corresponding EU strategy for November. The plenary was followed by a colourful bouquet of keynote speeches, including by Ellen S. Miller (Executive Director of the Sunlight Foundation), Nigel Shadbolt (OGD evangelist and spiritus rector of data.gov.uk), Tom Steinberg (founder and director of mySociety) and Andrew Stott (Director for Transparency and Digital Engagement for the UK Government,  data.gov.uk). A decidedly critical note on the current state and the prospects of the OGD movement was struck by Chris Taggert (founder and CEO of OpenCorporates: The Open Database Of the Corporate World),one of the (so far) few company founders who base their business model 100% on open (and linked) data. In five parallel sessions and workshops, numerous contributions addressed the most varied aspects of OGD. Particularly interesting were the OGD status reports from various cities, for example from Vienna or Rotterdam. The slides of the individual contributions will soon be published on the website of the OGD Camp 2011; my own contribution “OGD in Switzerland” can be found here.