Getting data used!

Rajiv Ranjan, ICT Advisor, NISRAugust, 2010

Getting data used (more)!

Why?

It is in our interest

• Ensures quality of production of statistics.

“We produce data with hard work, but if it is not used (enough), then it is not worth it. It is like building expensive roads which

is not frequented by people (instead, they take another road!)”

What is stopping us?

Challenges

• Large volume of data• Low dissemination & communication

(relatively)

Questions to ask ourselves:– Are users being drowned in data?– How do we ensure that the important messages

in data are easy to find?

Are we alone?

Someone had asked these questions before

• Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institute, Sweden

• Director of the Gapminder Foundation (Developer of

Trendalyzer software).

• Studied statistics, medicine and public health

• A licenced physician, served as District Medical Officer in Nacala in northern Mozambique.

Hans Rosling (Sweden)

Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen (Feb 2006, TED Conference, Monterey, California, 19:53Min)http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

What can we do?

Opportunities

• Data in databases• Internet (Web 2.0)

How to exploit the above:

• Revisit the concepts of data presentation• Combine them to emerging technologies

But, before we go on to propose what NISR can/should do, let us

see some examples of what people are doing across the world with

government/public data.

Usage/Demand

• Google ‘GDP of Rwanda’ - http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=GDP+of+Rwanda

• Visit ‘Google Public Data Explorer’ –http://www.google.com/publicdata/home

• Visit ‘I live at’ –http://www.ilive.at/

• Visit ‘Where Does My Money Go’ –http://www.wheredoesmymoneygo.org/

Examples

Supply

• Visit http://data.worldbank.org/• Visit http://data.gov.uk/• Visit http://www.data.gov/• Visit http://www.opendata.go.ke/ (added on 16 Aug, 2011)

• Visit http://www.census.gov/retail/

Examples

Involve

• Visit ‘Design for America’– http://sunlightlabs.com/contests/designforamerica/

• Visit ‘Rewired State’– http://rewiredstate.org/

• Visit ‘Show Us Better Way’– http://www.showusabetterway.co.uk/call/

• Visit ‘BarCampUKGovWeb’

Competitions

Examples

Actors

1. Government departments and other institutions ‘producing’ data in machine readable/usable format.

2. Civil society and private sector ‘mashing-up’ data – and making it useful!

Observation

Coming back to NISR context…

Opportunities

• Data in databases• Internet (Web 2.0)

How to exploit the above:

• Revisit the concepts of data presentation• Combine them to emerging technologies

Opportunities

• Data in databases• Internet (Web 2.0)• Invisible players (civil society, educational

institutes) How to exploit the above:

• Revisit the concepts of data presentation (XLS, XML etc.)• Combine them to emerging technologies (Web services)• Organize events to encourage playing with data

Characteristics of an ideal situation

• ‘Developer friendly’ raw data by NISR and others. Championing the cause of open data.

• Showcase products: Visualization, APIs/Mashups (not just data in tables)

• Active ‘engagement’ of educational institutions, civil society and private sector (including demand generation).

Thank you!