Streamed live to the public, Wednesday’s discussion session aims to promote the development and strengthening of the information society in Europe, as well as the use of open data, which serves as an important precursor to both enhanced feedback between citizens and the state and the innovation economy.
A panel of experts will first discuss the European Citizens’ Initiative in the morning session, while the afternoon discussion will focus on open data issues. The program and participant profiles are available for perusal here.
At the conference, experts will share their experiences and present opportunities for the use of open data, as well as Latvian and international achievements in the reuse of information. After the discussions, proposals will be drawn up for the EU-level policy programming documents – the European Citizens' Initiative and the Digital Agenda for Europe.
The event will bring together many high-level experts from Europe. Dr. Bastiaan van Loenen from the Delft University of Technology, who is the author of over 100 publications in the field of open data, will focus on privacy issues regarding geographical data – one the most widely used data sets in the public sector. The Director of the innovative UK start-up company Spend Network, Ian Makgill, will share his experience in the use of open data not only for creating new products and jobs, but also for making profit. Nuria de Lama, the Spanish representative of the Atos Research & Innovation group to the European Commission, will present her point of view regarding big data challenges in Europe.
A presentation on open data policy in Latvia will be given by Arnis Daugulis, the Deputy State Secretary for ICT at the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development and Toms Ceļmillers, the Senior Consultant of the Information Society Policy Division at the Electronic Government Department. The Head of the Information System Development and Support Division at the Latvian Register of Enterprises, Mārtiņš Štāls, will share his experience of opening data. The discussion on creating an open society and the European Citizens’ Initiative will be led by the senior policy analyst at the PROVIDUS Centre for Public Policy, Iveta Kažoka.
