Switzerland's first open government data portal goes online
Zurich is the first Swiss city to make a data portal available to the public for free use. The open government data portal will be launched as part of the second Swiss open data conference "Opendata.ch 2012" on June 28.
The aim of the project is open access to government data and its free use. This was announced by the city on Thursday. The city council hopes that innovative information services will be developed on the basis of this data.
The first step is to release data from the areas of socio-demographics and construction. This includes, for example, building and housing statistics, geoinformation such as the basic map of the city, an excerpt from the point-of-interest database and the list of street names. In addition, the results of all votes since 1933 at communal, cantonal and federal level are made accessible. The open government data portal (OGD portal) will be managed and further expanded by Statistik Stadt Zürich in the future.
Zurich to become top ICT location
The portal was developed as part of the "eZürich" project, which was declared a legislative priority by the city council. This has provided a strong impetus to make Zurich a top European location for information and communication technology (ICT), says City Councillor Martin Vollenwyder (FDP) in the press release.
It has succeeded in strengthening solidarity within the ICT sector and making the concerns of Zurich as an ICT location heard by a broad public. According to Vollenwyder, numerous projects have been initiated since fall 2010 in cooperation with business, science and politics. These include the "Zeeder" project, a financing platform for Internet start-ups in the early stages. It was launched by four Zurich startup founders and expands the "Blue Lion" foundation's offer to promote young companies.
Store personal documents in a "digital safe"
The "Data Purse" cooperation project - a "highly secure service" for the storage and management of personal and sensitive data and documents - is currently in the implementation phase, according to the press release. For example, salary statements or passports can be securely stored in the "digital safe", said a city spokeswoman
This enables users to exchange their data electronically with their bank, tax office, police or insurance company via a single account. The project was developed in collaboration with ICT companies and the University of Zurich. It was supported with a contribution from the federal government.
Computer science lessons for school classes
Various activities are underway to promote young talent. For example, the project week "Computer science is exciting" is being held in two school classes in the city of Zurich. The courses, which were developed by the city of Zurich in cooperation with the ETH, are to be offered throughout the canton in a second step. The new offer also includes the "Hack an App in one Week" course.
Some of the administration's internal e-government projects have also already been implemented. For example, supervised internet corners are offered in the city's retirement homes, temporary traffic regulations can be viewed online and a free app from the city police makes it easier to raise the alarm in an emergency.
A further 29 projects are in the implementation phase that were not developed directly as part of "eZürich", but pursue the same goal. For example, the City of Zurich's electricity utility EWZ is currently conducting a study to test the possible use of smart meter technology to reduce energy consumption. (sda)
