A couple of weeks back Digital Birmingham held an open data event in the Learning Hub at University Hospital Birmingham. The aim of it was to gather people from different areas of the public sector to talk about our plans for opening up access to data. The idea was that by doing so we would discover additional benefits for ourselves.
NET EUCEN is a network of international organisations all interested in the enhancement of the application of ‘user-centric concepts’ and is seen as a multi-disciplinary eGovernment community.
So, if you want access to a group of organisations with an interest in ‘user centric service developments’ or you want access to ‘best practice’ examples and scenarios … then this is the Network for you, register at www.net-eucen.org and open the virtual door to an extensive and informed knowledge-base community.
I love this post from Paul Sawers – UK & Media Editor at The Next Web, it gives a very visual and easy to understand representation of Internet usage in the UK and what this would look like as a hourly activity.
Have you ever wondered how the UK’s monthly Internet usage would look if it was condensed into a single hour? No, neither had we.
But the infographic below, based on data from Experian Hitwise, does exactly that, and it is interesting to see how we’re all whiling our time away on the Web.
In August 2011, the UK Internet populace spent 3.4bn hours online, and through combining visit data with the average visit session time, Hitwise has distilled the whole month’s usage into a single hour:
More – If UK Internet usage was condensed into 1 hour, what would it look like?
Based on US statistics from the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA) – their latest ‘broadband infographic’ details the connection between Broadband utilisation and the impact on the local economy, and in particular the beneficial effect this can have on job retention, creation and employment opportunities.
So, reiterating what Digital Birmingham has been saying for years:
The IIA appears to be America’s counterpart to Digital Birmingham, as it seeks to promote US public policies that support equal opportunity for universal broadband availability and adoption so that everyone, everywhere can seize the benefits of the Internet – from education to health care, employment to community building, civic engagement and beyond.
So, lets get all the US stats out of the way and I’d be really interested in finding out whether the UK has an equivalent body other than the Office of National Statistics (ONS) or West Midlands Regional Observatory, but in the meantime the Strategic Networks Group (SNG) has created a Digital Economy Index (DEi), which not surprisingly, the research shows that age and income have very significant impacts on how people use the Internet. The proprietary Digital Economy Index summarises how households use thirty distinct Internet activities. The higher the DEi, the more Internet activities a household engages in. The Digital Economy index progression from 1 to 10 (10 being highest) reflects the number of e-solutions being utilised – 10 being a household at 100% utlisation.
Utilisation is impacted by income and age – the lower a household income or the older the household, the lower its Internet utilisation. The differences (or divide) is most pronounced for those over 55 and those making less than $50,000.
So the digital divide is actually expanding as younger, higher income households best leverage e-solutions.
Again we’ve been busy with the preparation of funding bids and supporting the support the three city Council priorities; Employment, Education & Skills, Clean Green & Safe City and Protecting Vulnerable People with a strong focus on raising the profile of Birmingham.
Please click here to read the second quarterly update of what’s happening in the world of Digi Brum!
Last week, Robert Bell, Founder of the Intelligent Communities Forum and Lluis Olivella, Joint Director of IT (and Former CIO) for the City of Barcelona joined strategic leads and key decision makers in Birmingham for a Smart Cities Symposium.
The Symposium stimulated exchange and discussion to progress Birmingham’s Smart Connected City ambition, that will be key to accelerating Birmingham and the region’s economic opportunities and growth.
This is the start of a series of activities to deliver a long term vision and roadmap to enable a transformational step change in how we deliver services, do business and live our lives.
This is the second of two posts about issues raised within the current Cabinet Office consultation, Making Open Data Real. The consultation itself includes a total of 26 questions. So these two posts aren’t intended to be a fully comprehensive coverage, they are just two issues that I think are important.
Last week I wrote about the arguments which can be made for and against the charging for access to public data. This week I’m going to look at the question of which organisations should be covered by open data legislation.
I’m going to look at this from the point of view of a local authority and will, naturally, use examples from Birmingham.
Governments collect and maintain large datasets. Instances of such Public Sector Information range from geographic data to census records to real time traffic flows. In recent years there has also been a move to provide open and unrestricted access to Public Sector Information by publishing it online as Open Data.
The Government has recently announced its Making Open Data Real consultation on Open Data. All of our main political parties have policies which are broadly in favour of releasing Public Sector Information as Open Data and so it might appear that there isn’t anything contentious in this.
Hee hee.
A reminder to all that most of Birmingham will switch with the Sutton Coldfield transmitter. This will happen on the 7th and 21st of September 2011. For those who are already watching digital TV, you will need to retune your equipment on these dates.
For more information about the switchover, you can visit:
August saw worrying times for Birmingham. We had disturbances in the city centre and some of our residential areas and the tragic death of three young men in Winson Green.
It was a time when people were keen for information about what was, and often more importantly what wasn’t, happening. This meant that citizen journalists can feel pressured to write things up quickly and that can risk spreading misinformation and/or malicious rumours.
Now a variety of sources of information appeared as a result of the disturbances. In particular, there was Casey Rain’s Tumblr, which collated live reports and the Birmingham Riots 2011 – Live Updates Facebook page which actively dispelled rumours about incidents.
I thought it would be interesting to look at how some of the city’s hyperlocal blogs had dealt with the situation. The examples below are the good ones that I found.
Digital Birmingham is a Birmingham City Council initiative and part of a city wide strategic partnership of more than 40 public, private and voluntary organisations
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