Open Data for Local Communities

Austrian Research Promotion Agency

Only a minority of citizens regularly participate in collective decisions or draw on data­ rich evidence to engage in public deliberation processes. Similarly, the set of citizens with the sociotechnical capacity to leverage available Open Data is small. At the same time, governments, developer communities and affected communities remain disconnected: in this context, the CommuniData project aims at nothing less than turning the game upside down; we will enable a data­-driven approach to collective decision making that (i) translates Open Data into actionable knowledge for physical, local communities, (ii) connects administrations and citizens through an integrated knowledge repository that builds on Open Data and related user­ generated content, (iii) provides novel visual tools to navigate and understand patterns this knowledge repository, and (iv) enables communities to leverage, co-create and discuss Open Data to solve e.g. urban sustainability challenges in a collaborative fashion.