Presenting Euroalert at the workshop Share PSI prior to the Digital Agenda Assembly

As previously announced, Euroalert participated on 9 of May with many members of the European Open Data community at the workshop “Removing Road Blocks to a Pan European Market for PSI Reuse”, organized by the initiative W3C and ETSI: SharePSI.

Our position paper, 'Euroalert.net: Building a pan-European public procurement platform to aggregate data and commercial services for SMEs Deliver powered by open data' was selected to be presented, along with other interesting examples of services feeded by public sector information, on the table "Use Cases I" moderated by Margot Dor from ETSI.

In our intervention, we explained Euroalert experience in building the 10ders Information Services platform, throughout reusing public information data. With this platform, we intend to add data procurement from all over the EU and of course, the added-value services that we provide primarily to SMEs based on tender data.

10ders IS is a simple idea but at the same time it supposes a challenge as EU public procurement represents about 18% of the aggregate GDP of all member countries.

Of course, we try to contribute to the workshop explaining the obstacles that we are finding at every step, but also the satisfaction that is providing services to organizations and companies from 15 different countries. Especially considering that we are still at the beginning of our way and therefore we have a long way to create services and information to process.

As usually, we put at your disposal the presentation used in the workshop and we recommend you visiting the excellent collection of resources on the sessions that ETSI platform has conducted, and the article that our director has posted on his blog with a summary of his impressions.

Building a pan-European platform to aggregate public procurement data and deliver commercial services for SMEs powered by open data

We will continue working hard in order to provide you the best information services and that Euroalert keeps be considered a leading company in the emerging market for information-based services in the public sector, a company powered by OpenData. Thank you all for helping us getting there.

Euroalert will present 10ders Information Services at the workshop "Share-PSI.eu" within the framework of the European Digital Agenda

The first workshop, “Share-PSI”, will be held in Brussels on the 10-11 of May and is organized in the framework of the “Big Idea” of the European Digital Agenda. This event brings together different actors who are related to the reuse of public sector information (PSI) and who will discuss and contribute with ideas on how to re-use "open data" of public administration. Among them, they are representatives of civil society, media, government organizations, representatives of academia and companies like Euroalert.

On behalf of Euroalert.net, our director will participate at the workshop in the round table on the presentation of case studies which demonstrates the potential of “Open Data”, i.e. the reuse of public information. As a case study, José Luis Marin, will presents the position paper: "Euroalert.net: Building a pan-European platform to aggregate public procurement data and deliver commercial services for SMEs powered by open data”.

As you already might know, Euroalert create value from these "open data" offering the best content daily information about the European Union, such as calls for projects, news and EU legislation. Although in this occasion, it is our project 10ders Information Services, which is aimed to build a pan-European platform that will aggregate the big data about public procurement information generated by hundreds of thousands of contracting authorities in the EU, which leads us to Brussels along with other relevant actors in the European Open Data Community. You can also take a look to some of our services based in 10ders IS in the Euroalert store online, as well as the alerts systems on Government contracts for SMEs or the 10ders Reports.

If you have time, we recommend you to attend to this event because there will be presented many interesting ideas. Euroalert will participate on May 10 and we will try to keep you informed of everything that happens through our Twitter. We would also like to remind you that you can take the opportunity to meet us and if you wish some more information about our services you can always send us an e-mail. Of course, you will find in our blog a complete summary of what happened in this event afterwards. Thus, keep reading Euroalert's blog.

Euroalert.net meets International Trade at IMEX 2011

Among the activities our Team has prepared for this month, for whom we will give you some more details in the coming days, Euroalert.net will be on May 11th at the Madrid «Fair for International Business and Investment IMEX 2011», one more opportunity for us to meet institutions and businesses who develop their activity in the field of International Trade.

As you already know Euroalert.net has taken the challenge to build up the most complete pan-European platform aggregating information on all public contracts in the European Union which will help us to provide value services for SMEs. Our services and tools on EU Government contracts information are already being used by institutions and companies in many countries in order to improve their results in the public procurement sector outside their home countries, developing their export strategies and Internationalization Plans.

Among the institutions who already trust Euroalert.net to help their companies to export their products and services to foreign countries, there are organizations such as the Irish Trade and Technology Agency Enterprise Ireland, the London Chamber of Commerce or the Export or the International Promotion Agency for Spanish Madrid region PromoMadrid.

We are sure that this will be a perfect occasion for us to meet institutions and companies willing to improve their market intelligence focused in export activities thanks to Euroalert.net information products and services.

If you are in Madrid in May 11th and have the opportunity to stop in IMEX 2011, you can contact us either by e-mail or via Twitter as the Head of Euroalert.net International Department, Mai Rodriguez Entem, will be there all that day and will be pleased to meet you and chat about how Euroalert.net can help you to export.

IMEX 2011 will also run on May 12th, so if you are close to Madrid Municipal Conference Centre, don't forget: you have an appointment with International Trade!

Euroalert experience at the Open Data networking session at SICARM

SICARM 2011 event held in Murcia, closed last Friday with a session on Open Data: "The commercial reuse of public sector information: a new business opportunity for companies and funding opportunity for government against the crisis?”.

As we anticipated last week, Euroalert participated in this session, explaining its experience regarding reusing data administrations, both good and bad, and also showing some examples of the services Euroalert provide to companies and organizations throughout Europe.

We had a very interesting morning because we all learned many things about different aspects involved in the reuse of public sector information. Jose Manuel Alonso from CTIC Foundation, and professors Emilio Guichot Reina and Manuel Fernández Salmerón provided interesting information from the different angles of their respective areas of expertise. In order to know of what we are talking about, you can have a look to the Euroalert presentation paper, as well as CTIC Foundation presentation which explains the current state of play with regard to Open Data and the roundtable on the videos posted on the SICARM website.

Information Services Based on Reuse of Public Sector Information

Also, you can find more details regarding this event on the Jose L. Marín blog. We want to thank to everyone who came to the University of Murcia for its presence and to those who followed it through the Internet or Twitter.

Euroalert will participate in “SICARM 2011” event at Murcia Region

Euroalert.net keeps participating on events in which we can share experiences and learning to improve and to offer a better service. This week, we will travel to Murcia (Spain). There, it takes place the “XI Foro Anual Sociedad Información” «Information Society XI Annual Forum» and our director, José Luis Marín, will be one of the speakers in one of the panels in which he will describe how Euroalert uses opendata to offer more and better commercial intelligence services to companies from all over Europe adding an extra value to the information from the public sector.

«Information Society XI Annual Forum» has as its theme this year «The legal challenges of technological innovation in public administration». These workshops aim to "explore the legal implications of process innovation and openness that is demanded to the Public Administration by the society, so that satisfactorily meet the constitutional mandate to serve the general interest in accordance with the requirements and possibilities that technology offers to give effect to the principles of effectiveness, efficiency and participation because it has not yet been raised in an open debate about the enormous possibilities of modernization and, above all, innovation enabling tools available today".

There will also be in SICARM 2011, other great speakers, experts in the reuse of public sector information, as are many of the players in the Open Data community in Spain. These are some of the participants in this Forum, which we will have the honor to share the event:

• Fernando de Pablo, General Director for the Promotion of Electronic Administration of the Ministry of the Presidency. he called his speech: "Is it possible a new model of public administration based on innovation and technology?"
• Lorenzo Cotino Hueso, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Valencia and Coordinator for ICT Network Law. His presentation will focus on "Legal and institutional problems of the Open Government".
• José Manuel Alonso, from the CTIC Foundation who will speak on "The reuse of the public information in Spain: current status and future prospects" and that will be in our same workshop.

In addition, there will be many other speakers that may be of interest for your activities so we recommend you to review the complete program of SICARM 2011.

If you are interested in learning more about this topic and you are in Murcia between 13 and 15 April, you can still register using this form. Moreover, registration is free. In concrete, presentations and workshops will be held in the Auditorium and Congress Centre of Murcia, 13 and 14 April and 15 April at the University of Murcia, Campus La Merced. Euroalert will participate on April 15 so if you want to meet us in person or more details on any of Euroalert's services do not hesitate to send us a mail or send us a DM via Twitter. See you there!

Euroalert.net lends an Ear to Europe!

Over the past nearly 4 years, Euroalert.net Official Blog has been one of the channels where we have been telling you all the news and developments related to our business and services, which go beyond the daily track of EU news and activities. It has also been the way for you to give us your feedback about these changes, which has been indeed of quite a help for us. It is easy to follow Euroalert.net's evolution over this time in its Blog, as it has been the channel to announce new features in our services – widgets, public procurement and government contracts alerting services, on-line store, etc.; the launch of new sections with more contents in our web – such as EU Law, or commercial opportunities and public procurement in multilateral organizations, etc.; Euroalert.net's mentions in the press, or Euroalert.net's participation in open data events where we have been contributing with our experiences in re-using public sector information.

However, no announcement has made us more excited as the one we are bringing you today: Macarena Rodríguez, from La Oreja de Europa, will join us as new Euroalert.net Editor in Chief from 1 April!

As Macarena needs no introduction among all followers of European Union matters, let us just tell you that she is coming with a bag full of new projects and new energy to bring you every day all the most relevant contents about the day-to-day activity of the European Union and its institutions.

We are sure that her contribution to Euroalert.net's Team will make it an even more useful site for all of you, and will also allow us to move faster in our goal to build the first pan-European platform to aggregate public procurement and tenders from the 27 Member States in the European Union.

La Oreja de Europa ("Europe's Ear") will of course keep on listening to Europe, and will not disappear or be part of Euroalert.net corporation. It will remain a personal project run by Macarena Rodríguez, who will keep on devoting as much effort as before to create a space for reflection and opinion on EU issues. Euroalert.net, will of course be very happy it remains so.

Welcome to Euroalert.net Team, Macarena!

Euroalert.net has a brand new look!

Throughout the last weekend we have been publishing the new versions of the different websites which make Euroalert.net. The main change you will perceive is the new look of all sections of Euroalert.net, whose main objective is to improve the overall clarity in the presentation of these contents.

We really hope you will like these changes but, above all, what we really hope to have achieved is our goal to improve the presentation and allow you to better read the contents on the most relevant news about the European Union that we publish every day. As always, your feedback is very much appreciated, so send us all your comments and opinions through Euroalert.net twitter channel!

A few weeks ago we already announced the launch of a new Public procurement alerting service, a service that you can also try and test for your business thanks to the 7-day free trial you can get by registering in Euroalert.net website. This alerting system is one of the services that will make up the wide range of products and services Euroalert.net will be launching during 2011 as part or its strategy to become the first pan-European platform to aggregate all public tenders and public procurement contracts in the European Union.

Following this same trend to create business services based on public sector information, Euroalert.net has also launched over the last months the service to provide customized newsletters on European information, as well as the new section on European Union legislation, where for the moment you will find the legal provisions published in the L Series of the OJEU, but that will be expanded very soon.

In the coming weeks you will be noticing more changes as more new features will be added in order to improve the content we offer you every day as well as the services we provide based on this information. But, before anything else, we will be making the announcement you are all waiting for, the name of the person who will be the new Euroalert.net Chief Editor from 1 April...