We are really happy to host this South West Data meet up in the Studio. 

Bristol City Council has been exploring the potential of open data to transform the City and Council Services. Kevin O’Malley will outline some of the initiatives undertaken to date, demonstrate some new resources for the developer community, and highlight some exciting upcoming opportunities.

South West Data organiser Simon Price says:

This is a great topic to kick off the New Year with. If you've not heard of "Bristol is Open" then take a look at bristolisopen.com­

Kevin's going to be talking about plans to develop the recently established Open Data Bristol portal and API. Bristol is the first UK city to adopt the Socrata software used in New York and 100+ other US cities to provide public access to static and streaming realtime open data.

Bristol City Council, the local universities and other project partners have been very successful in attracting funding to get this initiative off the ground. However, I suspect that its long-term viability will be up to the user community, including data geeks like ourselves, engaging with this resource to take advantage of the opportunities afforded - whether for personal interest, profit and/or social good. So, please come along with some of that characteristic Bristol creativity, neat ideas and suggestions as well as any questions you may already have for Kevin!

Places are limited so if you’d like to come along sign up at meetup.com/south-west-data/events/219315331