This last Saturday was International Open Data Day with hackathons taking place in cities around the world. How many you ask? We can’t know for certain, but organizers around the world posted events to the wiki in over 50 cities around the world. Given the number of tweets with the
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eaves.ca: StatsCan’s free data costs $2M – a rant
So the other day a reader sent me an email pointing me to a story in iPolitics titled “StatsCan anticipates $2M loss from move to open data” and asked me what I thought. Frustrated, was my response. $2M is not a lot of money. Not in a federal budget of
Continue readingeaves.ca: Using Open Data to Map Vancouver’s Trees
This week, in preparation for the International Open Data Hackathon on Saturday, the Vancouver Parks Board shared one neighborhood of its tree inventory database (that I’ve uploaded to Buzzdata) so that we could at least see how it might be leveraged by citizens. What’s interesting is how valuable this data
Continue readingeaves.ca: Canada’s Foreign Aid Agency signs on to IATI: Aid Data get more transparent
Last night, while speaking at the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan Korea, Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda announced that Canada would be signing on to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). So what is IATI and why does this matter? IATI has developed a common, open
Continue readingeaves.ca: International Open Data Hackathon, Dec 3rd. It’s coming together.
So a number of things have started to really come together for this Saturday Dec 3rd. I’ve noticed a number of new cities being tweeted about (hello Kuala Lumpur & Oakland!) and others adding themselves to the wiki. Indeed, we seem to be above 40 cities. It is hard to
Continue readingeaves.ca: The Canadian Government’s New Web 2.0 Guidelines: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly
Yesterday, the government of Canada released its new Guidelines for external use of Web 2.0. For the 99.99% of you unfamiliar with what this is, it’s the guidelines (rules) that govern how, and when, public servants may use web 2.0 tools such as twitter and facebook. You, of course, likely
Continue readingeaves.ca: The New Government of Canada Open Data License: The OGL by another name
Last week the Minister Clement issued a press release announcing some of the progress the government has made on its Open Government Initiatives. Three things caught my eye. First, it appears the government continues to revise its open data license with things continuing to trend in the right direction. As
Continue readingThings Are Good: China Pushes Green Technology Forward
China has to confront a lot of environmental problems brought forth by its own quick development, and when China confronts an issue they go all out! Renewable Energy World has a quick write up comparing and contrasting China and the USA in how they support green technologies. The China Development
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Data Day – a project I’d like to be doing
As some readers and International Open Data Hackathon participants know, I’m really keen on developers reusing each others code. All too often, in hackathons, we like to build something from scratch (which can be fun) but I’ve always liked the idea of hackathons either spurring genuine projects that others can reuse, or using a hackathon […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: Weaving Foreign Ministries into the Digital Era: Three ideas
Last week I was in Ottawa giving a talk at the Department of Foreign Affairs talking about how technology, new media and open innovation will impact the department’s it work internally, across Ottawa and around the world. While there is lots to share, here are three ideas I’ve been stewing on: Keep more citizens safe […]
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: IBM Launches 3rd Annual Smarter Cities Challenge
smarter cities.jpg
At a time when corporations’ misdeeds are under a bright spotlight (and rightfully so,) we needn’t overlook the few companies that are working to bring innovation a…
Continue readingTrashy's World: Check out what my bro’ has been up to…
He’s living one of his dreams… Cool. Gotta love technology sometimes! Share and Enjoy: Trashy, Ottawa, Ontario
Continue readingeaves.ca: Using Open Data to drive good policy outcomes – Vancouver’s Rental Database
One of the best signs for open data is when governments are starting to grasp its potential to achieve policy objectives. Rather than just being about compliance, it is seen as a tool that can support the growth and management of a jurisdiction. This why I was excited to see Vision Vancouver (in which I’m […]
Continue readingPolitics and Entertainment: Steve Jobs was no technological visionary; he was a disturbed and disturing individual
Limits of Magical Thinking
Steve Jobs wasn’t a technology visionary, but he convinced the world that he was.
Steve Jobs was a disturbed and disturing individual, and he was no technological visionary but a crafty marketer who knew how to create a c…
Continue readingThings Are Good: Charge Your Phone with the Sun
We’ve seen DIY iPod solar chargers before and now an Ottawa-based company has produced a consumer one. The PowerTrip is a small battery with a USB jack and a solar panel on it.
Enter the PowerTrip, from Ottawa-based Ecosol. In a package about the size of a deck of cards, the PowerTrip houses a battery […]
Red Tory v.3.0.3: Tale of the Norden Bombsight
Malcom Gladwell spins a fascinating story about the strange origins and ultimately twisted fate of a fabulously complicated yet practically hapless bomb-sighting device developed at extraordinary expense for the U.S. military in WWII.
It’s a wonder…
Continue readingeaves.ca: As Canada Searches for its Open Government Partnership Commitments: A Proposal
Just before its launch in New York on September 20th, the Canadian Government agreed to be a signatory of the Open Government Partnership (OGP). Composed of over 40 countries the OGP signatories are required to create a list of commitments they promise to implement. Because Canada signed on just before the deadline it has not […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: The State of Open Data 2011
What is the state of the open data movement? Yesterday, during my opening keynote at the Open Government Data Camp (held this year in Warsaw, Poland) I sought to follow up on my talk from last year’s conference. Here’s my take of where we are today (I’ll post/link to a video of the talk as […]
Continue readingTrashy's World: I apologise in advance if you have a BlackBerry…
… well, sorta… it WAS your choice, after all…
Share and Enjoy:
Trashy, Ottawa, Ontario
Continue readingeaves.ca: Brain Candy – Great Quotes from Yesterday
I’m in San Francisco to co-chair the Code for America Summit this week, so lots going on, and some deep blog posts in the works. But first. Fun! Here are some of my favourite quotes I stumbled upon or heard in the last 24 hours. “The 4-Hour Body” reads as if The New England Journal […]
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