Opening data up to the public has resulted in a vast array of online tools and applications. But the potential impact goes beyond web developers making cool programs for smart phones.
"While getting more municipal data released can help empower citizens, there's growing recognition that open data also has a role in empowering governments to better cope with the management challenges that urban areas face. With that in mind, John Tolva, Director of Citizenship & Technology at IBM, talked about how his company's efforts to create new tools that allow cities to interact with municipal data to generate insights into issues such as traffic, energy use, and public safety.
IBM has been busy repositioning itself for several years around the idea of using the technology and process management techniques it specializes in to help develop solutions for some of the enormous social challenges of the world – many of which are concentrated around cities."
