Small Business Today Magazine DEC 2014 NOUN INVESTMENTS | Page 17
EDITORIALFEATURE
City of Houston Launches
Open Data Policy
By Annise D. Parker, Mayor of the City of Houston
I
n our continued commitment to transparency
and government accountability, the City of Houston has instituted an Open Data policy to allow
for greater public access to City data. Houston
joins a growing number of local, state, and federal
government agencies across the country that are
putting in place formal Open Data policies.
Under the Open Data Administrative Procedure, an Enterprise Data Officer (EDO) and an
Open Data Advisory Board will be appointed to
work with City departments to catalog datasets,
establish standards, and refresh guidelines for the
City’s open data portal which hosts government
information in open, machine-readable formats
while also ensuring privacy, confidentiality, and
security. The EDO and Advisory Board are also
responsible for working with the public to identify
important, high-value datasets.
First and foremost, this is about increasing transparency. It is also about citizen engagement and
increasing the pace of innovation in our City. We
want to engage the talents of our strong science,
technology, engineering, and math community to
help us solve the challenges of the 21st century.
This portal will enable civic technologists, entrepreneurs, innovators, researchers, and others to
use the data to generate new products and services as well as build businesses and develop community resources in partnership with government
to better serve the public. We want to know what
the public wants to see that isn’t already available.
This is not a new concept to the City of Houston which already has interim and mapping centric
portals with more than 220 publicly accessible datasets. The City is also fortunate to have one of the
largest civic technology communities in the country
and benefits from a strong partnership with Open
Houston, a local nonprofit, open data advocacy
group that organizes hackathons and other events
to develop useful solutions for the public.
At the City of Houston’s 1st Hackathon, held in
May 2013, we announced the launch of the City’s
Open Data Initiative. The new Open Data policy, in combination with continued civic innovation
events such as hackathons and monthly civic hack
nights, enable the City to partner with the community in taking advantage of new technology platforms, respond to community data interests, and
increase transparency and accountability in local
government.
The City’s Open Data Initiative ensures that we
continue to move towards Government 2.0. Citizens expect their government to work for them
but they are also often willing to propose ideas and
solutions to help us tackle our diverse challenges.
I’m immensely proud of our innovative community
for stepping up over the past few years to help
civic innovation thrive here in Houston. This is an
important first step.
The City has implemented three projects
through its civic innovation efforts – Budget Boot
Camp, 311 Performance Dashboards, and City
Fee Schedule. In addition, the City of Houston’s
IT staff has also benefited from the exposure to
new technologies and different development techniques.
We’re really excited to see the City’s commitment to open data. Just by publishing up-to-date
data, the City instantly engages a community of
people who will put it to good use.
Serving since January 2, 2010, Annise D. Parker has been elected
as the Mayor of Houston three times. She is Houston’s 61st
Mayor and one of ۛ H