Opendata.ch 2012 conference on 28 June in Zurich

Interest in the first Opendata.ch conference last June at the Swiss Federal Archives in Bern exceeded the expectations of everyone involved. This year’s conference on 28 June 2012 in Zurich is hosted by the City of Zurich with its «eZürich» initiative. At the same time, the Zurich city administration is launching the first Swiss open government data portal at municipal level. The results of the first comprehensive study on open government data (OGD) in Switzerland will be presented. The day’s programme includes prominent national and international speakers as well as interactive expert workshops on four main topics.

Since last year’s conference, a number of concrete developments around OGD have taken place in Switzerland. The aim of this year’s conference is to present the progress made, clarify the framework conditions and jointly discuss possible next steps. On 28 June 2012, City Councillor and Head of the Finance Department Martin Vollenwyder will open the morning of the conference and present the goals the City of Zurich is pursuing with the launch of the first Swiss OGD portal. The conference will also present the results of the first comprehensive OGD study in Switzerland, carried out by the Bern University of Applied Sciences together with partners. The aim of the study is to use an OGD roadmap to show decision-makers in politics, business and civil society the way towards using OGD in Switzerland. This requires a public discussion and the adoption of appropriate measures.

In the afternoon, participants can choose between four parallel tracks on the topics «Mobility», «Health», «Finance & Procurement» and «Science». In each track, recognised experts from Switzerland and abroad will give short keynote talks, followed by a moderated exchange among those present. As at last year’s conference, great importance is attached to networking between the various actors from public administration, civil society and politics, and time is set aside accordingly for discussion. The following speakers, among others, have already confirmed their participation:

  • Prof. Nigel Shadbolt, member of the UK Public Sector Transparency Board,
  • Daniel Dietrich, Open Knowledge Foundation Germany,
  • Martin Kaltenböck, Cooperation OGD Austria,
  • Prof. Abraham Bernstein, University of Zurich and
  • Rufus Pollock, Director of the Open Knowledge Foundation UK.

At the close of the conference, the moderators of the four tracks will report to the plenary on the results from the individual topic areas. Alongside the City of Zurich as host and sponsor, the board members of the Opendata.ch association, founded in January 2012, make the conference possible through their voluntary commitment. The association /ch/open (Swiss Open Sys­tems User Group) coordinates the registrations.

Date: Thursday, 28 June 2012
Time: 9 am to 5 pm, followed by an apéro
Venue: Hotel X-TRA
Limmatstrasse 118
CH-8005 Zürich
Map
Regis­tration: Until 31 March 2012, those interested can register at the reduced price of CHF 120 including standing lunch (instead of CHF 150).
/2012/register
Members of Opendata.ch, /ch/open and SI pay CHF 70 instead of CHF 150.

Contact for the «Opendata.ch 2012» conference:

Host: «eZürich» initiative (City of Zurich)
Andreas Németh, eZürich overall project manager eGovernment
andreas.nemeth@zuerich.ch, +41 44 412 93 88

Organiser: Opendata.ch association
Andreas Amsler, Community & Communication German-speaking Switzerland
andreas.amsler@opendata.ch, +41 79 518 32 37

Antoine Logean, Community & Communication French-speaking Switzerland
antoine.logean@opendata.ch, +41 079 351 84 82