'Open data' will help drive the new economy

Alexander B. Howard | Slate Future Tense | September 10, 2012

New companies are creating services using government data on health care, education, and more

If big data is a strategic resource, as has been suggested, then many national and state governments have public reserves that can be tapped for the public good in this young century's version of the industrial revolution...

Entrepreneurs, big and small, are mashing up data from the rapidly expanding collection of sources and building new businesses on it or improve their existing services, like Zillow or Google Maps or Consumer Reports or Bloomberg Government...

You may not realize it, but services you use on a daily basis have been built upon data released by the government. Weather data collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association has an annual estimated economic value of $10 billion, according to U.S. Chief Information Officer [CIO] Steven VanRoekel and U.S. Chief Technology Officer [CTO] Todd Park...

Now, as Park seeks to scale open data across the federal government, we’re on the verge of the next generation of services driven by open data, which will involve everything from energy to health care to consumer finance to transit sectors...