Capgemini has been awarded a three year contract by the European Commission for the deployment of an EU open data core platform.
The goal of the project will be to launch and operate a single large-scale pan-European Open Data Portal, designed to bring together public data resources from all 39 European countries.
The data will be made fully public, so that every European resident who has the internet will be able to access it.
Capgemini Consulting will lead the three year engagement and will co-ordinate with a number of consortium members and subcontractors, including; Sogeti, Intrasoft International, Open Data Institute, the University of Southampton as well as others.
Dinand Tinholt, Vice President and EU Lead at Capgemini Consulting, said "More and more volumes of data are published every day, every hour, every minute, every second; across every geography – large and small. With the increasing digitisation of society, the amount of data across the world is set to increase exponentially."
"For the EU two main questions arise: How can the EU ensure the accessibility and re-use of information collected by public administrations? And: What is the value of this information?"
"This strategic project is at the heart of all the Open and Big Data initiatives of public administrations across Europe. It will also serve as a platform to engage with private players, of all sizes, operating in the field of open data and predictive analytics."
Public administrations will be supported by the consortium in each of the 39 countries and will implement the policies regarding open data, this is to ensure a significant uptake on the publication and supply of open data. The hope is that this will provide evidence on the economic impact of the re-use of public data resources.
Promoting knowledge on organisational and technical requirements to foster the publication of open data resources, training will be provided and strategies will be developed for interaction with user groups to promote the re-use of friendly licensing conditions.
The project will cover the entire data chain from progress on the EU’s aid spend by country to information on research projects funded by the EU.
In additional to the development of the European Open Data Portal, the contract also includes services to enable the viewing of published public data resources, which have been collected by public administrators in the EU and other countries in the European Economic Area.
