Vincenzo PatrunoA Bit of Nearly Everything

Press Release

How can they be used and what we can do with Open Data? Probably no one better than, citizens, independent software developers, professionals, businesses and all data consumers can answer this question. And it ‘s because of this consideration that AppsForItaly, the Italian Open Data Competition was launched.

Remember that Open Data is (generally ) data produced and published on the Web by the Public Sector and where  reuse is allowed. To get an idea about Open Data in Italy, you can start from dati.gov.it, the national catalog of Open Data. It was launched a few months ago and it is now consolidating to become the ‘”entry point” of public data in Italy. Catalogs are also active as a regional portals. You can visit for instance dati.piemonte.it (the first public data portal in Italy) or dati.emilia-romagna.it. Statistics Open Data are released (in English, of course!) by the Italian Institute of Statistics on dati.istat.it, www.istat.it, demo.istat.it and other thematic web sites.

The aim of AppsForItaly is encouraging citizens to design Web applications, mobile apps, to create visualizations and infographics and  to design databases. Obviously not all people are specialists and therefore don’t have the necessary skills to do that. This is the reason why the competition also  includes the category “Ideas and Projects” where everyone who has a good idea or a project about how to use data can apply.

Is it worth it? You have to remember there  is € 30,000 in prizes provided by the Italian Ministry for Public Administration and Innovation, and  € 10,000 as well as prizes in technology and services  provided by official sponsors. And don’t forget that all proposals will be presented to companies,  communities, the market and  Public Administrations.

To do this, there is still three month’s time. The deadline for submitting proposals is in fact scheduled for Apr. 30th 2012.

All proposals received will be evaluated by a committee  while the event / award ceremony will take place during the first week of March. Stay tuned for all further updates!

The videoclip “Statistically Honky Tonk” won the highly sought-after ‘Most Entertaining Spaghetti Western’ Award in the “Promoting the Practice and Profession of Statistics” video competition run by The Public Awareness Group of the American Statistical Association (ASA).

Here the certificate

and here the video. Enjoy!

Thanks guys! I’m honored!!

Open Knowledge Foundation published a blog post I wrote last week  having the title “Open Data, Italy has awoken”. The same post was published also on Government in The Lab, the online magazine for Government and Politics around the World. Thank you guys!

Good News for data consumers all over in the World!

The Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) releases all contents and data  published on the new Web Site ( released just few minutes ago )under CC-By Licence. An important step that all italian open data movement noted with satisfaction.

Here the complete disclaimer 

Next 12-13 June Italians go to polls in a Nationwide Referndum. Italians are going to express about privatisation of water distribution, the return to nuclear power and about the “legal impediment” of the Prime Minister and ministers.

Obviousely we suggest:

Yes: to keep public the water distribution
Yes: against the return to nuclear power
Yes: against the “legal impediment”. The Italian Prime Minister should respect the low and shoud be judged as a common citizen. Isn’t it Mr. Berlusconi?

ForumPA is the biggest event in Italy about the Public Sector. Here the video (in italian, of course) of the main event dedicated to Open Data.

It was an opportunity for associations and organizations to get toghether an to discuss about the state of the play on Open Data in Italy.

During the event, a competition about Open Data was launched: Apps For Italy (appsforitaly.org). Stay Tuned!

Video streaming by Ustream

I know it!  This is an “off topic” post. But if you like “mediterranean” folk music, I wish to suggest you the album “Bellavia” by the italian folk music band “Radicanto” . Released on 19th April, it contains 12 beautiful songs. You can listen to the title track on this video.

If you want to buy it, you can go here or anywhere else you prefer.