Exploring Government Data

A short presentation about the Expense Visualizer project presented at BitNorth in 2009

Transcript

1. ffunction inc. Exploring Government data Sébastien Pierre, ffunction inc. @BitNorth Camp CAMMAC, October 2009 www.ffctn.com
2. ffunction inc. DATA.GOV RECOVERY.GOV 2009 was a great year for transparency
3. ffunction inc. VISIBLE GOVERNMENT (CA) SUNLIGHT FOUNDATION (US) And we now have organizations dedicated to making good use of this data
4. ffunction inc. What does it mean for us, citizens ?
5. 5 ffunction inc. We have access to data that can be easily found that can be easily exchanged that can be easily processed … so what can we do with it ?
6. 6 ffunction inc. We can answer specific questions Like “what is the federal budget for war, and how does it compare to the budget for education and healthcare” You can use your Excel™ super-powers and find out for yourself...
7. 7 ffunction inc. However... You are (probably) not going to make any discovery, besides finding by yourself facts that you could already find on Wikipedia (try it for U.S. Federal Budget)
8. 8 ffunction inc. Why ? Data is often complex and comes in a format that's not very human-friendly
9. ffunction inc. above: screenshot of the US federal budget 2010 CSV file
10. ffunction inc. YOU'LL NEED PATIENCE AND LUCK TO FIND INTERESTING FACTS... above: screenshot of the US federal budget 2010 CSV file
11. ffunction inc. We need tools to use this data !
12. 12 ffunction inc. Exploring the Federal Hospitality and Travel expenses The dataset ➔ Covering 20+ Canadian federal departments ➔ Data from 2004 to 2008 ➔ Harvested by VisibleGovernment ➔ 22MB SQL file
13. ffunction inc. YEARS $ TRAVEL EXPENSES HOSPITALITY EXPENSES
14. ffunction inc. DEMO
15. 15 ffunction inc. Conclusion Open data is good, but visible open data is better ! ➔ We need tools to engage citizens ➔ These tools should be playful and visual ➔ And help spread interesting facts and start discussions !
16. ffunction inc. Thank you ! www.ffctn.com sebastien@ffctn.com