ESADE holds the seminar "Transparency and Open Data in Local Government: Challenges and Opportunities"
The seminar "Transparency and Open Data in Local Government: Challenges and Opportunities", organized by ESADE’s Center for Innovation in Cities, drew more than one hundred people and featured Kevin Merritt, founder of Socrata and an open-data pioneer in the US. In his talk, Merritt highlighted cities’ initiatives on open-data issues, noting that "governments are outperforming the private sector in terms of innovation".
The town councils of Gavà and Rubí chose the ESADE seminar to present their new websites featuring open-data technology. The websites, which testify to the towns’ commitment to transparency and innovation, were developed by Socrata, the industry leader, which has worked on similar projects for the local governments of cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago and for institutions such as the White House or the United Nations.
With regard to the open-data movement, Mr Merritt reminded attendees that "95% of the work has yet to be done" and underscored the need to spread what he called "a permanently embraced philosophy and approach".
The mayors of Gavà, which has already implemented the open-data philosophy on its website, and Rubí, which is currently developing it, confirmed the need to innovate and support open data in order to enhance transparency and promote economic development. "Society has evolved and local governments have not done their homework", noted Carmen Garcia, mayor of Rubí. Likewise, Raquel Sánchez, mayor of Gavà, highlighted that with the Gavà Obert website, "the challenge is not only to make it a tool for transparency and democratic control but also to ensure it adds value".
The discussion then turned to the experiences of the people who had led the efforts to implement the towns’ open-data projects. Michael Donaldson, coordinator of the presidency of the Rubí town council, and Eduard Gil, manager of the town of Gavà, emphasized the need to engage the entire municipal government in the project and described the different approaches they had taken and the initial results thereof.
Finally, Mila Gascó, associate director of the Center for Innovation in Cities, brought the event to a close after offering an academic perspective on the subject. Building on what the other speakers had said, Gascó added that "a government is transparent when it offers data that allow citizens to make decisions" and stressed the civic responsibility arising from the act of making all government data public.
