Already more than 100 registrations for next week’s make.opendata.ch Hackdays in Bern and Sierre
PRESS RELEASE OPENDATA.CH ASSOCIATION
Bern, 14 March 2013
One week before the start of the make.opendata.ch Hackdays on financial data, more than 100 number experts, software developers and graphic designers have already signed up for the Opendata.ch association’s programming days. The hands-on event will be opened by an interdisciplinary panel discussion on the purpose and value of visualised financial data.
On Friday and Saturday, 22 and 23 March 2013, more than 100 specialists, programmers and designers will meet at the University of Bern and at the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland Valais in Sierre to work together in small groups on visualising financial data that has already been published or is new. These so-called “Hackdays” are organised by the Opendata.ch association together with the participating universities. The aim is to bring more transparency to public financial figures by developing innovative applications.
On site, representatives of numerous public administrations will bring along their financial data that is neither security-relevant nor personal, and support the teams with their specialist knowledge in visualising and developing applications. So-called “ideators” and “data owners” come from, among others, the City of Bern administration, the City of Zurich, the Canton of Bern and the Federal Administration. Researchers, consultants and NGO representatives are taking part to find inspiration for their work and to contribute practical experience. In addition, several media professionals have signed up as participants who, in line with the idea of data journalism, will not only research and visualise figures but also take care of their journalistic presentation.
On the eve of the event, Thursday, 21 March 2013, from 5 pm to 7 pm, the General Assembly of the Opendata.ch association, followed by the opening of the Finance make.opendata.ch Hackdays, will take place at the University of Bern in the UniS building, room A -122, Schanzeneckstrasse 1, Bern. After the association’s meeting, at 6 pm, there will be a video message from National Councillor Jacqueline Badran and a presentation of the new mobile application for the federal finances.
This will be followed by an interdisciplinary panel discussion on the possibilities and limits of visualised financial data. On the panel are Giovanna Battagliero, SP member of the Grand Council of the Canton of Bern, Dr Christoph Koller, project manager at the Institut de Hautes Études en Administration Publique IDHEAP, Barbara Kummler, project manager at bundeshaushalt-info.de, Daniel Schaffner, head of finance of the City of Bern, and Julian Schmidli, data journalist at the SonntagsZeitung.
Both the opening event on 21 March and the Hackdays on 22 and 23 March are free of charge thanks to the support of the University of Bern and the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland Valais, as well as catering sponsorship from /ch/open, Netcetera and NTS Workspace. Registration for the Hackdays remains open on make.opendata.ch until shortly before the start. Representatives of authorities and other organisations are also still invited to bring financial and procurement data in machine-readable formats (XML, CSV, Excel) to the Hackdays. Anyone interested can contact the people listed below.
Contact Bern
Dr Matthias Stürmer, Board member Opendata.ch
matthias.stuermer@opendata.ch, +41 76 368 81 65
Contact Sierre
Dr Antoine Logean, Board member Opendata.ch
antoine.logean@opendata.ch, +41 79 351 84 82