2014 Canadian Open Data Summit

On February 21st, 2014, PlaceSpeak founder and CEO, Colleen Hardwick participated in the 2014 Canadian Open Data Summit in Vancouver.

The summit brought together a diverse group of leading edge speakers from across Canada and the United States. Participants shared their perspective throughout the day on the challenges and possible solutions facing open data initiatives across all disciplines. 

This Summit positioned PlaceSpeak in the centre of a diverse group of leading edge thinkers and decision makers from across BC, Canada and the United States. Some of the notable speakers included:

• Honourable Andrew Wilkinson, Minister of Minister of Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services, BC
• David Hume, Executive Director, Citizen Engagement, BC Government (Emcee)
• James McKinney, Open North
• Chad Skelton, Investigative reporter and Data journalist, Vancouver Sun
• Sean Holman, Public-eye-online, journalist, Jack Webster journalism award winner
• Jay Bhalla, Co-Founder of Canadian Open Data Institute & Executive Director, Open Institute
• Todd Pugh, Executive Director, CivicInfo BC
• Alex Ritchie, Open Government Lead, BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure
• Catherine Chernoff, Senior Technical Analyst, BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure
• Sue Bigelow, Digital Conservator, City of Vancouver Archives

“Open data” is the philosophy and practice of making the data collected by government agencies freely available to the public.  We feel that it is critical to increasing citizens’ engagement with their governments, this is why it is a central pillar of PlaceSpeak’s development strategy.

As more and more open data becomes available through all levels of government and civic organizations, it makes it possible for us to be able to share that information with our participant base.  This will make it easier to keep people informed of relevant issues in their neighborhoods.