The EU Datathon 2017
Reusing EU Open Data for jobs and growth
On 16 November 2017 the EU Datathon organised by the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the European Union and the Publications Office of the European Union has come to a successful end at the final event in Brussels. The datathon started in September 2017.
The Datathon focused on the reuse of data from the EU Open Data Portal, the access point to Open Data made available by the institutions and agencies of the European Union. The Datathon participants had the opportunity to show how Open Data from public institutions can be used to tackle policy and/or societal challenges and generate jobs and growth. In particular, the contestants were invited to focus on the following priorities of the Juncker Commission: i) Jobs, growth and investment; ii) Digital single market; iii) Democratic change.
Ten projects were shortlisted and the winners were announced during the event on 16 November. The first prize went to C4P, an application that generate information about the EU market (for example on the EU public procurement expenditure) and provides a helpful transparency tool for all those interested in such information. The second prize was awarded to Light on Europe, an application that offers users easily comprehensible information on the European regions. The third prize was awarded to Unigraph, an application that helps users gather deeper insights by combining Open Data from dispersed Open Data sources and displaying this information in a user-friendly format.
By using and linking datasets from EU institutions, the participants directly contributed to solving societal issues. As also noted by various experts during the two panel sessions, Open Data portals play an important role here. Such infrastructures provide Open Data in a sustainable way, while making the administrative culture more innovative and quality oriented. Collaboration is a key element and helps harmonise the efforts of both data providers and users.
More information on the agenda and some snapshots from the EU Datathon 2017 are available here.