Innovations in Urban Data

This post is part of our Re-imagining Cities discussion series, following the third edition of the NewCities Summit in Dallas in June 2014.

Thinking of urban data as a resource is useful if it aligns public and private interests around the idea that data is important. Nonetheless, the panelists warned that data should not be thought of as a currency or as “the new petroleum.” Most importantly, the tension between public/private partnership – between privacy and data ownership – must be addressed. Open data is a tool for innovation. New models for urban innovation will happen whether they are legislated or not. The question is how citizens are going to be involved.

Alex Winter is trying to optimize the way cities work for citizens by providing planners with extensive and accurate data. For example, data on how citizens are navigate themselves around the city, by using video feeds and smartphone video. His experience shows that if some basic rules are followed, privacy concerns are eased, and data analysis can be pushed further. These rules include: combining current data feeds with new feeds that citizens participate in; never store video; never broadcast video; never identify or track back individual people. Urban data can then start telling the city where a sidewalk needs to be widened, or give smartphone users real-time information on when to go shopping or how to avoid traffic congestion.

Teji Abraham noted that the International Data Corporation reported that 13 trillion gigabytes of the current 44 trillion gigabyte digital universe is from sensors, but the collected data is meaningless if you can’t extract insights from it. Open data, which is growing from a local to super-national level, is unsustainable if it remains in silos. Transit data in a silo, for example, stagnates and is not scalable. When data is combined, insights emerge.

Governments and entrepreneurs work better together than on their own – Romain Lacombe

The open data concept is one way to avoid silos. The rise of distributed sensors has created new opportunities for feeds, but Romain Lacombe pointed out that much current data is within government institutions that create policies and deliver services, based on data about economics, environment and health. It is important for this data to be accurate, but also open. Innovators need to have access to it and to be able to use data as a tool to build new services. He believes governments and entrepreneurs work better together than on their own.

The panelists agreed that data’s value is not just economic, but also social and environmental. Data should be available for people to validate and an agreement reached on it may be used. To have citizen engagement the value exchange must be apparent and the system trustworthy. Privacy tradeoffs need to be made understandable and transparent. This is more easily accomplished, they acknowledged, in countries that practice democracy.

Smartphones have 40,000 times the computing power of the computer that sent Apollo 11 to the moon. The explosion of data, the rise of decentralized sensor networks, and even open street maps will redefine the role of government at all levels and may lead to greater government accountability.

Speakers

• Teji Abraham, Director, Consulting Services – Analytics, Cisco –
• Romain Lacombe, Former Head of Innovation, Etalab – French Government Open Data Portal – @rlacombe
• Alex Winter, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Placemeter – @awinter

Moderator by: Gareth Mitchell, Presenter, BBC Click Radio – @GarethM