Last week, a delegation of fabernovelians participated in the DataConnexions workshop on the French Open Data platform Etalab organized by Google Paris. On top of getting us beautiful men size tee shirts mentioning that we love data, the event gave us a broad overview of the state of Open Data in France:

Open data en France:

How it works. France's governmental Open Data initiative, called Etalab, is a platform designed to encourage innovation. Over 200 people in the various administrations have been busy over the last year collecting data to populate the platform. In France, all the public data collected by the administration should be made available to the public, since the 1978 law, and Etalab has ben designed to effectively complete this juridic frame.

So for the moment France's initiative gives public data back to the public, and the objective is not to create new datasets that do not already exist.
The platform runs under an open license equivalent to CCby which is compatible with other major public data licenses around the globe.
The objective of the platform is still not defined, it is up to the developer who are yet to plug their applications on Open Data.

So now that we (more or less) have it, what can we do with Open Data ?

Informe. Public Open Data contributes to public transparency, a fundamental element of democracy, but it means something only if the data is reused, analyzed and restituted to the public.Some examples :

• Le véritomètre d'OWNI + iTélé: France is campaigning for it's next president. OWNI and i-Télé created a tool that analyzes in real time the assertions and promised of the cadidates and restitutes their effects on a graph to measure their truthfulness.
• Voxe: A tool to illustrate what's being debated, to help citizens make their choice.
• Every kind of data viz: Data visualization is a new discipline, combining graphic design, journalism, statisticians giving food for thought by putting into perspective raw data.
     example: faberNovel and Etalab
     example in the UK: where does my money go?

Explore. By making us understand phenomena, Open Data opens up the opportunity to create new uses:

• Mapping: datapublica released a map of corporal car accidents in France  which opens up the possibility to lead efficient road safety plans;
• Like in New-York City, map all food safety rules infringements in Paris' Restaurants so that the customers are better advised on what they buy.

Invent. Using open data may translate into new services or new experiences. Why not apply or use Open Data in all innovations? Here are a few examples:

• Home'nGo: a website easing the painful steps of homesearch, using geolocalized open data to enrich their maps in order to neutrally informe the user on the houses' areas.
• Joshfire factory: Joshfire recently launched a factory, sort of lab based on open data, destined to enable its users to create cross device apps in just a few minutes.

The rest is up to us. The possibilities are endless. Let's get creative!