Open Data

 Over the past five years, governments around the world have begun to make their data available through Open Data, and it has shown these benefits:

• Creation of new products and services to serve citizens, businesses, and community
• Richer information shared and more personalized services to the public.
• Reduced costs for government and citizens to find, distribute and use government data
• Spurred innovation and economic development opportunities that leverage the data.

More open, accountable government and more informed and engaged citizens.

•  Third party agencies use Open data to build road networks and addressing so emergency services, or delivery companies can find houses and route their vehicles efficiently.
• Service Providers use open data to direct business decisions from what services to offer in a region to where to locate the new high-speed internet lines.
• Many startup companies use open data including Yelp for food inspections and restaurant reviews and Zillow for real estate and property valuations.
• Researchers like to use Open Data so they can release the data along with the findings in the paper, encouraging others to replicate their work.
• Corporations and businesses make use of Open Data to find the best location for their new business based on land availability and demographics in different areas.
• Community members can use open data to advocate for themselves and influence emerging data-driven conversations.
• Open data should NOT be used to replace Alberta One Call.