French company accelerates American Open Data adaptation

How to make American local governments more efficient, innovative, transparent and accountable? The French company OpenDataSoft spreads its wings by offering a free open data portal trial license to more than 500 cities in the United States. The initiative, called Open Data America, intends to show the benefit of presenting cities' Open Data in interactive ways.

The cities are offered a ready-made portals, meant to make public information more accessible. In this way citizens, companies and government agencies can analyse data, draw insights and spot upcoming trends. The project targets medium size cities (between 65,000 and 375,000 inhabitants) and helps them to begin to use data and start to inform decision-making. Interested cities can subscribe to the service through the Amazon Web Services Marketplace.