Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Euroalert.net mentioned by Expansión economic daily in an article about the industry created by open data

And the story goes on: In July it was the Spanish newspaper El País that mentioned Euroalert.net in an article about Open Data, and a couple of months later, in September, the economic daily newspaper Cinco Días cited Euroalert.net experience it its analysis about economic opportunities generated by the reuse of public sector information. Now, economic daily Expansión has also published on 18 October its contribution to clarify the real value of the business sector created by open data from public sector. Once again, Euroalert.net is highlighted as one of the pioneering companies in Spain when it comes to take advantage of these opportunities and create value added services for companies all around Europe.

The article entitled "Access to public data, a labyrinth close to solution" (access to PDF full Spanish version) from Mercedes Serraller, gathers the opinions from different parties involved in the Open Data movement in Spain, such as Rafael Rubio, Professor of Constitutional Law at the UCM (Madrid), Nagore de los Rios, director of the Basque Government portal Irekia, or Alvaro Furilo from Pro Bono Público Association.

As always, Euroalert.net is again really proud to be considered as a reference service in the industry and to be contributing as far as we can to spread the culture of reuse. Creating in Spain a culture for open data which will lead to the release of more sources of data and allow companies to create value and build new services, will with no doubt revitalise our economy by creating new opportunities for innovation. Euroalert.net will of course be there.

For Euroalert.net it is being really exciting to be part of this process which is also allowing our community to benefit from the best possible products and services. For that reason, Euroalert.net will keep on making contributions to all possible initiatives, either with our presence (as we did at the Governamental Linked Open Data session at the ICT 2010), by sharing our experiences (as it was the case at FICOD 09 or the PSI Meeting 2010), or by providing resources in initiatives such as ShowMeTheTenders or the release of our own data on public authorities.

We have an exciting challenge ahead and these mentions in so relevant media such as El País, Cinco Días or Expansión, are a good encouragement for Euroalert.net objective to gather business opportunities representing around 17% of EU's GDP in one single pan-European platform on public procurement to provide information services for companies all around the world.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Spending the day with Euroalert.net at the Open Days 2010

Today has been our first day at the Open Days 2010: the 8th European Week of Regions and Cities in Europe. We picked our badge this morning and start running from one workshop to the other, meeting old friends and making new ones.

One thing which has surprised us is the little activity there has been for the Open Days in Twitter today... Euroalert.net has really been one of the very few tweeting with the official hashtag #euopendays. We really felt alone in the conference rooms typing in our computer or our smartphone and somehow disappointed as we though that following others' tweets from other workshops would have enriched the debate... Here's a suggestion for making regions and cities even closer to the public at the Open Days, maybe for 9th edition!

We hope that at least those who follow Euroalert.net in Twitter will have enjoyed with our tweets from the conferences we attended.

Besides this "social media coverage", as we already announced you a couple of months ago Euroalert.net has been at some quite interesting workshops. We met the pre-commercial procurement people from DG Information Society and Media, for an interesting workshop on how public procurement can boost innovation also at regional level, shared some ideas on how to promote entrepreneurship and innovative business with start-up strategies, discussed over how to get public acceptance on controversial new energy technologies projects...

We also had the opportunity to meet our friends from the England's Northwest Brussels Office, from Fundación Comunidad Valenciana, from Stockholm Region, and also from a our own region, Castilla y León, at the exhibition area of the meeting place, and also unexpectedly meet with old friends at the Committee of the Regions lobby entrance!

He are looking forward to more interesting things tomorrow, and will be there telling you everything from the #euopendays. Are you joining us?