US-President Barack Obama had been the first to show other governments how to make public administrative data accessible to the public on the internet at data.gov.
Available data on the web is nothing new: the internet already offers inexhaustible information; Wikipedia is the most extensive encyclopedia of the world – the world’s knowledge has been made accessible to all human beings.

The novel aspect of Linked Open Data (LOD) is that it is able to link the mass of different items of information in the web in a structured way with each other and to draw the connections between data and concepts to make them permanently useful: Linked Open Data.

LOD aims to make information transparent by linking data from different sources and from heterogeneous systems and hence to be able to use knowledge in new contexts.

Technically LOD is based on data which ist published on the web in a machine-readable form (RDF). This is made possible through specific definitions, distinction and correspondence with other data sets.

LOD – Advantages – in short

1. Creation of transparency – guarantee of findability

2. Possibility of reusability

3.Long-term availability for human being and machine

The question is not about being for or against Open Data, but rather in what rationale and how far the logic should be taken.

]init[ offers the following services for enabling Linked Open Data:

• Conceptual Consulting
• Initial preparation of content and data
• Conception and implementation of pilot applications
• Continuing maintenance and operation service
• Composed Data Requests as editorial services

Our activities around LOD

]init[ supports the following open data projects at the European level:

• ISA puts Core Vocabularies up for public review
• A Federation of Repositories in Europe

]init[ develops innovative apps that visualize statistical data:

• Cool App: Demography Guide

]init[ has organized expert workshops on open data’s relevance for open and transparent governance:

• Berlin, 7th September 2011: Review: ]init[ Open Data Event in Berlin
• Brussels, 12th April 2011: A common path towards Linked Open Data

In 2011, ]init[ committed itself to the first nationwide open data competition “Apps for Germany” and endowed an exceptional price.

National IT Summit 2010 in Dresden

The 5th National IT Summit 2010 under the chairmanship of Federal Minister of Economy and Technology Rainer Brüderle took place under the motto “Germany Digital 2015”. Eight teams from economy and administration had prepared position papers on various key topics beforehand and presented them on 7th of December 2010 in Dresden in front of high-level representatives from the political world, administration and economy.

Apart from different initiatives concerning the development of suitable measures to support the National E-Government Strategy by economy and science, the sub work group “Open Data / Open Government” was lead-managed by ]init[. On this basis work group 3 of the National IT Summit had been successful to put in motion an agreement on the building of a national infrastructure to provide and to use open data in the final agreement “Dresdner Erklärung”.