uses of the data have been flowing. One of the innovative ideas arising from the event was Light. Raider, an app utilisi
THE GREATER MANCHESTER DATA SYNCHRONISATION PROGRAMME
The Digital Catapult is unlocking Local Authority open data to inspire SME innovation in Manchester.
The Greater Manchester Data Synchronisation Programme, first launched in October 2013 and now entering its third phase, brings together a range of organisations to drive innovation through the use of the region’s open data. Co-ordinated by the Digital Catapult, the project centres on developing new methods of open data management using linked data and is perceived as an exemplar amongst the open data community. In addition to data release, the project has been used to explore new interfaces between local government and civil society, with the intention of identifying new opportunities for local innovation and service provision.
Creating Partnerships The programme was created out of the need for increased access to open data amongst SMEs trying to develop new services and products in cities.
14 18
DATA USE CASES CREATED DURING THE PROGRAMME
5
NEW BUSINESSES CREATED AS A DIRECT
RESULT OF THE ACTIVITY
5
LOCAL COUNCILS ENGAGED
DATASETS RELEASED
To solve this problem, the Digital Catapult, alongside the Future Cities Catapult, worked in partnership
with innovation agency FutureEverything to co-design a pilot, initially with three local authorities – Manchester City Council, Trafford Council and Salford City Council. Since the initial phase, the programme has since extended the partnerships to include Tameside and Stockport Councils. One of the Digital Catapult’s most important roles was to work with FutureEverything to support the councils and emphasise to them the advantages of making their data more easily accessible. The project team then sought out local SMEs, alerting them to the availability of information about their city that they could use to build applications.
Driving Innovation
Success Stories
Through this collaborative engagement work and the placement of code fellows civic minded technologists, with the capacity to introduce new data modelling skills and processes within the councils - the Digital Catapult has, to date, enabled and accelerated the complex release process of 14 diverse sets of data. Thanks to the availability of this data, and the coding events coordinated by the Digital Catapult and Future Everything, a total of 18 data use cases have so far been created, resulting in a number of prototype applications currently in various stages of development.
From the project’s first coding event, which took place in March 2014 at the FutureEverything Festival, ideas for new uses of the data have been flowing. One of the innovative ideas arising from the event was Light Raider, an app utilising streetlight data which motivates people to exercise by rewarding them with points for running past streetlights in their area. The Light Raider app is currently in beta testing with plans to launch on Google Play in the near future. Other ideas included Thales Recycle, a recycling app allowing people to locate their nearest recycling centres, which is already available on iOS and Android, and an app called Biospheric, which helps homebuyers search planning applications and the effect of building work on local property values. At the most recent event, the GDSMP Lean Startup Weekend, which took place in February 2015, ten teams came together to tackle a range of social and civic challenges. Of the ten ideas which were pitched to the judges, four were taken forward for development including Chart Share, which focuses on stress-free creation and sharing of visualisations, and Textocracy, a community based service to empower more local residents to have a say in the improvement of their neighbourhood and provision of services.
T H E G R E AT ER M A N C H E S T ER DATA
Chirdeep Chhabra, senior partnerships manager at the Connected Digital Economy Catapult said:
“This data can be used by anybody – and the greatest achievement of this programme has been partnering with so many creative people to play with the data, experiment and exchange ideas. From the first two phases we have already seen a range of exciting new prototypes and data uses and hope the project will have great results in terms of economic value and impact on the community going forward.”
Region: Greater Manchester
Partners: FutureEverything, Manchester, Trafford and Salford City Councils, Future Cities Catapult
Challenge area: Closed Organisational Data
Project website: http://www.gmdsp.org.uk
digitalcatapultcentre.org.uk
[email protected] tel: 0300 1233 101
S Y N C H R O N I S AT I O N P R O G R A M M E
