The strategy of Data Publica is more innovative

How to open my public data The question is often the puzzle for communities, forced to engage in "computer archeology" to exhume software not really designed for this data. At the time, they rely often on specialists as In City, young company who assisted the city of Rennes. The Council or the service today are the only markets really lyricism and INTA.

Even if it is an activity still quite marked by activism of open source, Microsoft wants to make a square and made of the Canadian city of Edmonton, the first to have used his offers Open Government Data Initiative. Simple not yet for the giant of computing, which is facing a young start-up already occur on this niche, as Socrata.

The strategy of Data Publica is more innovative. The company, initially supported by funding from the Secretariat of State for the digital economy, has built a directory of public data. Now accompanied by Inria and its IT Translation Fund, she wants to go further in collecting and marketing business data. Goal: become a public and private data market place. Some firms thus find the way to enhance data which they did have nothing from previously.

With OS ' City, an application that notifies the Rennais of schedules of bus and the availability of seats in the car parks of the city, NewLC won no money. In the competition organized by the city of Rennes, its software certainly won a prize of 3,500 euros, but development had cost about 20,000 euros. "However, we have known." We even signed a contract. "Can therefore be considered that the return on investment is", summarizes Eric Bustarret, founder of NewLC employs 8 people.

"It is still an indirect economic model for developers who know betting on the strong social utility applications." "For example, the best routes for cyclists or people in a wheelchair", insists a chargé de mission on open data at the City Hall of Paris. One of the popular applications of the city of San Francisco, Mom Maps, aggregates the information allowing a mother to occupy her young children: parks, playgrounds, covered, restaurants, museums...

The field of transport is today who seduced the more developers. "Everything simply because the uses are obvious" says Amiel Lavon, operational Director of In City Solution. And an important traffic can leave hope for substantial revenue through advertising. Especially in large cities, where issues related to travel are paramount. If simple step yet. "Because, from a technical point of view, real-time data management is complex," insists Amiel Lavon. Above all, carriers often keep jealously guarded their data. In the Paris region, with a regulatory authority (Stif) and several carriers, including the RATP and SNCF, the situation is complicated and does not advance. The city of Paris pushes the RATP to open its data. "They are aware of the importance of the thing, but have the reflex to imagine that they are sitting on a pile of gold". "So far, they have sold nothing and the service is rendered," is impatient on the City Hall of Paris.

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