{"id":2116,"date":"2012-02-25T17:00:37","date_gmt":"2012-02-25T16:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.statigeneralinnovazione.it\/?p=2116"},"modified":"2013-10-22T19:22:22","modified_gmt":"2013-10-22T17:22:22","slug":"la-democratizzazione-dei-dati-per-abbattere-il-data-divide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.statigeneralinnovazione.it\/en\/la-democratizzazione-dei-dati-per-abbattere-il-data-divide\/","title":{"rendered":"The democratization of data to break down the "data divide""},"content":{"rendered":"

More and more Italian public administrations are riding the hype of "open data"<\/strong>. Following the mantra they set up official portals from which it is possible to search and download the data they hold, in open formats, with free and sometimes even "linkable" licenses (here an infographic<\/a>). In short, we are about to witness a a veritable flood of public, open and free data<\/strong>. Well \u2013 we say \u2013 finally! But the risk is that that data will remain where it is<\/strong>, available to everyone, but essentially unused.<\/p>\n

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A new challenge, overcoming the "data divide"<\/h4>\n

Where is the problem?<\/strong> An answer began to suggest this brief interview with Jonathan Gosier Everyone has a big data problem \u2013 O'Reilly Radar<\/a>, in which @jongos<\/a> states that the "digital divide" will in fact be surpassed - I would say better supported - by the \u201cdate divide\u201d<\/strong>. The deluge of information is now part of our daily life: \u201cdata problems manifest themselves in a multitude of ways: too many emails, too many passwords to remember, or simply knowing where to look online to find answers to questions<\/em>“. The solutions to manage all this data and information are unfortunately not accessible to the average individual, for a variety of reasons.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here in Italy we start first of all from a problem of "digital divide"<\/strong>which, however, is gradually being resolved. But the more serious one is the slow \u201ccomputer literacy\u201d<\/strong>, which leads to a general difficulty on the part of both the average citizen user<\/strong> in finding and using the tools that enable the management of this huge data bank, both of the PA<\/strong> that does not understand the potential of digitization.<\/p>\n

The solution for Gosier is\u00a0start a<\/strong> data democratization process<\/strong>i.e. giving people the ability to understand what data is available<\/strong>, how they can be manipulated, and how to use them to improve your life<\/strong>. Ability that at the moment very few possess, for the reasons mentioned. If we add to this a general reluctance of the Italian PAs to be transparent, a new challenge arises that needs to be overcome.<\/p>\n

Can data save the world?<\/h4>\n

Another interesting idea came from an article by Alex Howard<\/a> \u2013 always on O'Reilly Radar \u2013 titled \u201cData for the public good<\/a>\u201c. The incipit is formidable: “Can data save the world? Not alone<\/em>“<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The article states that all data-for-the-public-good activities are driven by a distributed community<\/strong>\u00a0made up of media, non-profit organizations, academics and activists, focused on building more aware citizens, generating new news, in whatever form it is distributed.<\/p>\n

And we talk about open government as an even more important and certainly preparatory process to that of the adoption and dissemination of open data. The "Gov 2.0" is in fact a powerful combination of open government, open data, social media, collective intelligence and connectivity<\/strong>. In all of this, access to data<\/strong> held by public entities it is definitely an occasion<\/strong> to relaunch its economic value and encourage entrepreneurship. The movement of data for the public good therefore goes far beyond the actions that individual governments can take.<\/p>\n

Howard goes on to state that it is certainly important that governments commit themselves to "opening up"<\/strong>, but in many cases they need external advice or even funding to do so. In that context citizens, businesses and developers absolutely have to show that they are capable of using data<\/strong>, proving to express not only demand, but above all the ability outside the government to put open data at the service of accountability, utility for citizens and the economic opportunities they can generate.<\/p>\n

Opportunities in Italy<\/h4>\n

I want to try now place these concepts in the Italian context<\/strong>, and understand what are the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities linked on the one hand to the adoption by the PA of open data and on the other to the real ability of Italian society and business to exploit them. I will be deliberately brief, because I'd like to start a discussion<\/strong>. Currently in Italy the panorama consists of:<\/p>\n