GMDSP Awarded for Innovation

GMDSP Awarded for Innovation

iNetwork Innovation Awards Logo

Recently the Greater Manchester Data Synchronisation Programme (or GMDSP to its friends) won an award celebrating it as a leading example of how information can be used innovatively and effectively for real benefits. The Local eGovernment Standards Body (LeGSB) Award was presented as part of the iNetwork innovation awards 2014 and it’s great to see a collaborative linked, open data project being recognised in this way. In brief, GMDSP focuses on the synchronised release of linked, open datasets across multiple organisations. Our role has been to host the data on our PublishMyData platform and to provide ongoing training and assistance to the code fellows involved.

GMDSP Logo

The code fellows have been working on standardising and transforming data from the councils and authorities involved to produce RDF to host on our platform as Linked Data. The advantage of storing data in this way is that the organisations involved now have their data in a form that can be linked to other open data. This makes it more powerful for solving problems or developing apps or visualisations. An example of one such application is the light raider app, built at the phase 1 hackathon where our CTO Ric helped out at as an advisor.

Light Radider Screenshot

GMDSP is a collaboration between the Connected Digital Economy Catapult, Future Cities Catapult and Future Everything. Like the Hampshire Hub, it’s a great example of publishing linked, open data from multiple public sector organisations. Kudos to all involved. The LeGSB winners video can be seen here.