State & Local Government Policy, Business and Technology

How Cities Can Help Local Institutions Monetize Their Data

Data-Smart City Solutions: Beyond its promise of transparency and accountability, open data has become a hallmark of good government because of its well documented return on investment for the public. In New York, where I work on implementing the city's vision of "Open Data for All", it is proving to be valuable information resource helping local small businesses compete with large companies.

Government data is an asset whose value otherwise is capped at the operational value it produces internally. Opening it to the public redeploys this asset to encourage entrepreneurialism and innovation outside the four corners of city hall. Recently, the city of Copenhagen used the same logic to drive the value proposition of its open data program to the next level. The city is moving beyond simply making government-collected data available toward spurring the Danish capital's residents, businesses, and universities to monetize their own latent information assets.

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