Krems Workshop: A self sustaining business model for open data

Call for Participation

The fourth workshop in the Share-PSI series will address the topic of self-sustaining business models for open data and PSI. The workshop is explicitly interested in business models for commercial entities that reuse PSI and for the public sector itself as it develops the culture of sharing its information in a sustainable 'business as usual' manner.

As with all Share-PSI workshops, the aim is to identify best practices in these areas with a focus on Public Sector Information, although cultural heritage, commercial and scientific data are also relevant.

The successful usage of open data will not only depend on its availability and usability. These three crucial factors have to be met:

  1. an ecosystem that enables those with ideas, skills and the economic background to easily engage with each other;
  2. sustainable business models that support the long-term the success of solutions making use of PSI; and
  3. lighthouse projects that make it easier for followers to pick-up initial solutions and improve them.

Participants can expect to engage and share expertise with others interested in getting a business up and running, and public sector staff working to build sustainable platforms.

Interview with workshop host, Dr. Johann Höchtl.

Background

Open data and public sector information, PSI, is increasingly available and recognised as an important resource. The integration of such open data into organisations' data warehouse and data management systems will be a key competitive advantage in our data-driven economy and therefore an important success factor. In 2011, the European Commission launched an Open Data Strategy for Europe (Reference: IP/11/1524), which is expected to deliver a €40 billion boost to the EU's economy each year. The study on “Pricing of public sector information (POPSIS)“ undertaken by Deloitte concludes that the potential benefits of lowered charges for PSI re-use can be high, since low charges can lead to more economic activity, market dynamism, innovation and employment [4]. According to a study by McKinsey in 2013, open data will unlock an additional $3 trillion in seven sectors for the US economy [1], the Warsaw Institute for Economic Studies forecasts additional GDP of EUR 200 Billion through to 2020 for the EU [2], and the study “Worldwide Big Data Technology and Services, 2012–2015 Forecast,” conducted by IDC, concludes that big data technology and services are expected to grow worldwide at a compound annual growth rate of 40% – about seven times that of the ICT market overall [3].

One trend and one observation become clear:

  1. the discussion of open data, PSI and big data are becoming increasingly intermingled; and
  2. the numbers are big and stunning: they serve well as a door-opener when it comes to convincing policy makers to invest in open data, engage in PSI and promote Big Data, but a thorough and scientifically rigorous model that would account for the vast indirect revenue cycle associated with open data benefits is still missing.

There are many aspects that need to be tackled in order to promote open data and PSI, and to transform exaggerated expectations into a truly sustainable data business. Many of these were addressed during the previous Share-PSI workshops is Samos, Lisbon, and Timișoara. One challenge is the lack of truly convincing lighthouse projects that serve the community as show-cases to draw conclusions and improve existing or establish new business solutions.

Workshop Aims

The aim of this workshop is to identify good practice of the open / big data / PSI business ecosystem that will serve others by lowering entry barriers to start a data driven business and help the public sector establish a sustained data flow.

This Share-PSI Workshop tries to address the issue of sustainable business models by:

  1. Encouraging business people to present existing solutions that make use of PSI. We are not encouraging marketing presentations about the potential of open / big / PSI data but real-life and implemented business solutions.
  2. Inviting policy makers to present planned or implemented actions in various areas of public sector policy making (legal, technical, organisational) towards the facilitation of a sustainable data market aligned with the European Data Market strategy.
  3. Attracting researchers to present their work in the area of usability aspects that constrain open / big data and PSI to unfold the touted economic benefits and identified means for mitigation.

Workshop Questions

These are questions and topics we would like to see addressed during presentations and workshops. They are not exhaustive but should give a clearer idea about the workshops aims:

  • What usability constraints prevent the effective use of open data, how can they be overcome sustainably and who's responsibility is it?
  • Is the legal system facilitating or obstructing open data business models? What can be done,and by whom, to overcome the obstructions?
  • How can organisational obstructions be removed to allow the sustainable and open publication of research results?
  • How can open data skills be developed and encouraged in education and research?
  • How can seed funding be used to foster a sustainable ecosystem without creating a dependency?
  • Are there specific actions that need to be taken to encourage the data ecosystem in different domains such as energy, production, mobility, ICT, security, space, transport, tourism and evidence-based decision making? If so, by whom?
  • What else needs to be done to encourage open innovation in Europe?

Participation

Participation is free.

The workshop is hosted by Danube University Krems, Centre for E-Governance. The two day workshop is co-located with the CeDEM 2015 Conference that focuses on a variety of issues including open data, transparency and open innovation and opens the opportunity for mutual discussions.

There are several to participate:

Share your best practice. You have identified a process of data publication which you and stakeholders consider as outstanding in guaranteeing timeliness, quality and user satisfaction? You have created a model for data-triggered business innovation and making money out of it? You drafted funding schemes which demands or encourages the publication of research results as open data? Share your experiences using this form. Your contribution may be edited by the SharePSI project manager and eventually published as a SharePSI best practice. You can discuss your best practice during the workshop by proposing a dedicated session on the topic you described.

Deadline: ongoing

Lead a session. This entails facilitating a discussion. It may begin with a short set up presentation but the vast majority of the time should be allocated for discussion.

You may also attend but do not lead a session, vote on ideas already submitted, or come up with a new session proposal. Please be specific in what you propose and clearly state:

  • the problem/issue you are going to address;
  • the expected outcome of the workshop;
  • the intended audience;
  • the moderation methods you plan to use, if applicable; (optional)
  • the facilities you require (optional).

Facilities provided by the host include presenter, flip-board, markers, paper. Please note that you are proposing a workshop which should be interactive in nature and not a speech.

It is paramount to have the main points of the workshop collected in written form. Ask one of the participants to be a scribe or bring a colleague who will scribe. Audio or Video-recordings do not qualify as a workshop outcome.

Deadline: 20th April 2015

Submit a paper for plenary. Papers, up to a maximum of 5 pages in length, are invited for consideration as the basis of a plenary presentation.

Papers should be submitted in a non-proprietary format (HTML, PDF, ePub etc.) via e-mail to johann.hoechtl@donau-uni.ac.at no later than the deadline below. Please include an abstract of the paper in your e-mail. Submissions by more than one author are welcome.

Deadline: 20th April 2015

Pitch a barcamp session. This requires no action from you now. Before lunch break on day 2 of the workshop, we will give you room to propose a barcamp topic you wish to present/discuss after lunch. Space will be provided for you to host the barcamp session. This is the right style for contribution for topics which emerge during day 1 of the workshop.

All selected contributions and associated slides will be published in the Share-PSI 2.0 Web site after the announcement of results under a CC-BY licence. By submitting documents entitled for publication you agree that your contributions will be published under that permissive license.

Session proposals and plenary papers will be subject to review by the Programme Committee. Closely related session proposals and plenary presentations will be grouped together so that submitters will need to decide ahead of time who will actually lead the session, which is likely to last approximately one hour.

Whatever the specific topic of the session or talk, we're looking for answers to three questions:

  1. What X is the thing that should be done to publish or reuse PSI?
  2. Why does X facilitate the publication or reuse of PSI?
  3. How can one achieve X and how can you measure or test it?

Call for collocation

The Share-PSI 2.0 partners encourage other groups to propose sessions and perhaps hold face to face meetings in Krems around the time of the workshop in May 2015.

The Krems workshop, with its highly interactive format across multiple tracks, is a perfect place to boost your project's dissemination activities.

Dates

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Venue

The workshop is hosted by Danube University Krems,
Dr.-Karl-Dorrek-Straße 30,
3500 Krems,
Austria.

(Google Map)

Questions? Please contact Johann Höchtl, Danube University Krems workshop host.

Registration

Registration is open!

References

1
J. Manyika, M. Chui, P. Groves, D. Farrell, S. van Kuiken, und E. Almasi Doshi, Open data: Unlocking innovation and performance with liquid information, McKinsey Global Institute, New York, Oct. 2013
2
Demos Europa and Warsaw Institute for Economic Studies, Big and Open Data in Europe: A growth engine or a missed opportunity? (PDF), Warsaw, 2014
3
D. Vesset, A. Nadkarin, R. Brothers, und C. A. Christiansen, Worldwide Big Data Technology and Services 2013–2017 Forecast, IDC, Framingham, Doc # 244979, Dec. 2013
4
M. de Vries, L. Kapff, M. N. Achiaga, P. Wauters, D. Osimo, P. Foley, K. Szkuta, J. O’Connor, und D. Whitehouse, POPSIS - Pricing Of Public Sector Information Study, European Commission, Information Society and Media Directorate-General, Oct. 2011.

Further Reading