UK Government Moves to Put Data on the Web

Posted on June 10, 2009 by Ivan Herman

Today, 10th if June, the Office of the Prime Minister in the UK announced that Tim Berners-Lee will “help drive opening of access to Government data on the web over the coming months.” The announcement is an important step in helping to fulfill the vision for a Web of Linked Open Data built on W3C’s open Semantic Web standards, espoused by Berners-Lee in his TED 2009 talk. “Government data—the people’s data is an important component to the larger Linked Open Data movement,” said Berners-Lee. “I look forward to working with multiple government agencies and local enthusiasts to help early adopters bring their data to the bigger picture.” In April, Berners-Lee engaged similarly with the US government offering to help them join the “rapidly growing Linked Open Data cloud, to which US recovery data will be a welcome addition.” W3C’s own eGovernment Interest Group has also been actively building an international network of support to work with governments on issues of transparency, accountability, and efficiency through open data.

About Ivan Herman

Ivan Herman is the Semantic Web Activity Lead at W3C. He graduated as a mathematician at the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest, Hungary, in 1979. After a brief scholarship at the Université Paris VI he joined the Hungarian research institute in computer science (SZTAKI) where he worked for 6 years. He left Hungary in 1986 and, after a few years in industry, he joined the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Sciences (CWI) in Amsterdam where he has held a tenure position since 1988. He received a PhD degree in Computer Science in 1990 at the Leiden University, in the Netherlands. Ivan joined the W3C team as Head of Offices in January 2001 while maintaining his position at CWI. He served as Head of Offices until June 2006, when he was asked to take the Semantic Web Activity Lead position.

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