Madrid, Spain, will host the 4th International Open
Data Conference on October 6 and 7.

The importance and value of data in journalism, smart cities, or science,
among other areas, will be covered in the Conference.

The sector of data has an economic potential of about three trillion dollars
per year at international level.

The reuse of data allows saving 7,000 lives every year, as it improves health
response, reducing energy consumption by 16%, or reducing the accident
rate in European roads by 5,5%.

The Call for Proposals will be open from March 1 to April 3 for experts to
submit proposals that contribute to the elaboration of the programme.
Madrid, February 29, 2016. The Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism, through the
Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Information Society and the public business
institution Red.es, organize the 4th International Open Data Conference (IODC16), which will
take place on October 6 and 7. IODC16 will be an essential meeting point for the global
community, a place for debate on the future of open data, its value in different fields, and the
potential economic and social benefits it generates (opendatacon.org).
After the third edition held in Ottawa (Canada), Madrid takes the baton and will be the location
of the next edition of the Conference, supported by international entities such as the World
Bank, the International Development Research Centre of Canada (IDRC), and the Open Data for
Development Network (OD4D). Under the motto ‘Global Goals, Local Impact,’ IODC16 will
continue the work initiated in the previous editions to discuss new opportunities and challenges
related to the global open data community.
Tras la exitosa tercera edición celebrada en Ottawa (Canadá), España impulsa el debate sobre
los datos abiertos, siendo Madrid la sede de esta próxima Conferencia, que se organiza junto
con el Banco Mundial, el Centro de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo International de Canadá
(IDRC) y el Open Data for Development Network (OD4D). Bajo el lema `Objetivos globales,
impacto local´, la IODC16 recoge los resultados obtenidos en la Conferencia de Ottawa y
abordará las nuevas oportunidades y desafíos vinculados a la comunidad open data mundial.
Open data make a real impact on job creation, the provision of public services, and the
development of innovative solutions. The European Commission report Creating value through
Open Data confirms that the reuse of data allows saving 7,000 lives every year, as it improves
health response, reducing energy consumption by 16%, or reducing the accident rate in
European roads by 5,5%.
Besides, data are a valuable raw material to offer solutions in key sectors such as agriculture,
food industry, education or healthcare services. The international research made by Mckinsey
shows an economic potential of up to three trillion dollars per year just for a total of seven key
sectors: Education; Transport; Consumer products; Electricity; Extractive industries; Health, and
Personal finances.
Objectives of IODC16
The 4th International Open Data Conference will convene countries from northern and
southern hemispheres to set patterns and establish global open data collaboration policies that
allow a wider social and economic development. Besides, it will take a significant collaborative
effort from public and private sector, given the participation and dialogue between experts from
various sectors, the open data community, senior officials, industry leaders and civil society
representatives.
De esta manera, la IODC16 se convierte en uno de los más importantes puntos de encuentro
para explorar y debatir el universo open data, con el objetivo de buscar soluciones innovadoras
y prácticas en áreas como la ciencia, la agricultura, las ciudades inteligentes, la salud, el medio
ambiente, la cultura, la educación y el periodismo de datos. Al mismo tiempo, persigue la
consolidación de la sociedad internacional sobre datos abiertos, la identificación y exploración
de nuevas oportunidades y la generación de más espacios para la interconexión y la
colaboración.
In this way, IODC16 will become one of the foremost meeting points to explore and debate
topics already established in the open data agenda, with the objective of finding innovative and
practical solutions in areas such as science, agriculture, smart cities, healthcare, environment,
culture, education and data journalism.
The importance of this event for the global open data community is exemplified by the
relevance of its lecturers. This year’s edition will be attended by high-level representatives like,
among others, Alloysius Attah, co-founder and CEO at Farmerline, specialized in the collection
and distribution of agricultural data in Ghana; Alejandro Maza, founder of OPI, Mexican
company specialized in handling large volumes of data for the identification and resolution of
social issues; and Carey Anne Nadeau, founder of Open Data Nation, specialized in the civic use
of open data.
Three lines of action in IODC16: impact, action and sharing.
The Conference is organized on the basis of three lines of work: the ‘impact,’ which covers
specific open data initiatives that have real impact on people’s lives; the ‘action,’ which includes
lectures, forums and work groups with the objective of building a roadmap for the global open
data community; and the ‘sharing,’ meant to share the knowledge on the field, discuss specific
topics or collect best practices implemented by different collectives (companies, civic
organizations and research groups, among others, including governments from all over the
world).
Call for proposals
With the objective of defining a programme of interest for the entire open data community, the
organization of the 4th International Open Data Conference will open a call for proposals. All
applications must be submitted between March 1 and April 3. In this way, the whole community
will have the chance to get involved in the creation of the agenda and the Conference
programme. All the necessary information can be found on opendatacon.org.
***
APPENDIX.
OPEN DATA: SOME INDICATORS
The opening of stored information held by public administrations and its accessibility for society has
revealed countless opportunities to create new business models based on data reuse.

Considering Europe as a whole, the analyses made by demosEuropa estimate profits of about
200 billion Euros until 2020, provided that the potential of open data is combined with the
potential of big data in a total of 21 strategic sectors. This would mean an increase of the GDP by
1.9% in Europe; today, that equals more than a year of economic growth.

The international research made by McKinsey shows an economic potential of up to four and a
half trillion Euros per year just for a total of seven key sectors: education; transport; consumer
products; electricity; extractive industries; health, and personal finances.

Omidyar Network’s report also predicts a cumulative growth of about ten trillion Euros for the
G20 economies as a whole during the next five years. This represents an increase of 50% from
the established growth objective for the same period.

In the case of the ASEDIE’s report about the infomediary sector for a total of 549 companies,
results show a trading volume of 1,100 million Euros and more than 12,000 job positions.

The infomediary sector –dedicated to the generation of products, applications or added value
services from public sector information– reached a trading volume of between 450 and 500
million and produced between 4,200 and 4,700 jobs, according to the Characterization Study of
the Infomediary Sector in Spain during 2014 (Reuse of Public Sector Information), based on a
study made by the National Observatory for Telecommunications and the Information Society
(ONTSI), at the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism.

A first study that analyzes the maturity level of the open data initiatives in the member states of
the European Union, along with Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland (EU-28), has been made
within the framework of the recent project European Data Portal. Spain is included in the group
of European leaders, as it reaches the highest values in the two indicators that it analyzes:
availability of open data, and maturity level of open data portals. The results of the study show
that the national open data sector has reached the optimal level of maturity and may serve as a
reference for other countries that are working on improving their open data initiatives.

According to the report ‘Big & Open Data in Europe: A growth engine or a missed oportunity’
from the Warsaw Institute for Economic Studies, data will represent 1,9% of the GDP of the
European Union (EU-28) in 2020, and the open data reuse market is expected to grow by 36,9%,
reaching a value of 75,500 million Euros between 2016 and 2020.

Besides from the economic potential of open data, data opening has a positive impact on public
sectors as well; in fact, reuse is estimated to result in savings of 1,700 million Euros within four
years in the EU-28. Thanks to the European Data Portal, the various actors have access in real
time to the datasets published on the different European catalogues, regardless of their location,
with the objective of creating solutions and added value services for society.

The European Commission report Creating value through Open Data demonstrates that data
reuse allows saving 7,000 lives every year, as it improves health response, reducing energy
consumption by 16%, or reducing the accident rate in European roads by 5,5%.

The ePSIplatform is an initiative of the European Commission that encourages the public sector
and the reuse of open data in the European Union. The PSI Scoreboard measures the state of
affairs.

The OECD has developed an index about open data considering the countries that take part in
this organization: “OURdata Index: Open, Useful, Reusable Government Data, 2014 (chapter
10).”

The World Wide Web Foundation, supported by IDRC, has developed the Open Data Barometer,
which analyzes global trends and provides national and regional comparative data.