Open Data in the city of Ghent

Yesterday was my first visit to a GentM event.
The topic of the evening: “Open Data”. (Someone even mentioned Smart Cities)

Someone (didn’t catch the name) talked about the digitalized University Library Ghent.
They pointed out that they’ve already gathered a lot of data and made it publicly available.
On the top of their homepage, there’s a link to available downloads and API’s for the people wanting to be creative with their data.

Next up was Pieter Colpaert, the father of the famous iRail going for word domination.
Pieter explained how iRails started, how they do it, and their goal (which is world domination).
His presentation:

After the awesome talk of Pieter, the microphone was passed on to Bart Rosseau.
Bart works as the Strategic Communication Advisor for the city.
He shared the view of the city on Open Data and what they want and will do for the public.
He noted that it’s obviously not as simple as just opening everything up to everyone, as there are privacy concerns etc…
He promised that there will be data available starting somewhere in the middle of May on http://gent.be/open
Probably on the 14th of May (source: appsforghent.be)
His presentation:

It’s not clear on which data will be placed in the public domain and/or under which license the data will be put.
So let’s keep our eyes open for changes on the http://www.gent.be/open page.

After his talk I’m glad I can conclude that there’s awareness on Open Data and Open Source within the city ​​council.

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