The following guest post is from Stephen Hilton, Programme Lead of the Connecting Bristol initiative.

Unusually perhaps, for a city council, we recognise and relish the fact that our city is a quirky, unorthodox, hot-bed of creative digital activity and activism. Bristol City Council has been promoting local e-democracy for the last decade. And it is this passion for digital transparency and engagement that has led us head first into the world of opengov and open data.

B-Open is a high-profile Bristol City Council open data initiative. Launched at the end of June 2010 by Barbara Janke, Council Leader and Dr Mark Wright, Executive Member for Transformation and Efficiency, the project seeks to place as much council data as possible into the public domain and catalyse the highly active digital community in the city to re-use and re-purpose it, generating new products, services and insight.

In partnership with the Bristol-based iShed, B-Open was launched as a strand of nationally recognised collaborative innovation scheme, Media Sandbox. Through Media Sandbox 3 x £10k commissions are being awarded, to develop ideas using council data which encapsulate criteria defined as “creative, smart, green, connected” and delivering public value.

An open data portal is being created to act as a focus for the community who are engaged in this work and the people who might benefit from the outcomes. Once developed, the B-Open portal will provide access to council data and importantly, will also provide a showcase for the uses of the data that will emerge.

At the time of writing a wide range of high quality applications have been received, including data visualisations, mobile games and services relating to transport and mobility – six projects have been shortlisted for interview and the 3 commissions will be announced at the end of the month.

For more information see:

• http://www.connectingbristol.org
• http://www.bristol.gov.uk/opendata

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