Cornerhouse

Open data might sound like a scary techie concept but it’s about letting others have access to your data so they can produce new and exciting things with it.

This session is an introduction to open data for people working in cultural organisations who want to start exploring new and innovative ways of working with data and digital content. You’ll hear from organisations like us who have experimented with our own data and from the developers themselves who produce innovative and creative prototypes from your spreadsheets and stats.

Guest speakers include -

Alan Holding: Alan works for Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA), which carries out a range of technology projects including public wifi, sensor networks and open data. Alan will be providing a basic break down of what open data actually means, using as little technical jargon as possible.

Rachel Coldicutt: Rachel is the co-founder of Caper, an agency that inspires digital innovation across the cultural, creative, technology and public sectors. Rachel organised the Culture Hack programme bringing developers and cultural organisations together for one off events to play with data and produce first stage prototypes. She will discuss the outcomes and issues she has come across working with both sectors in this field.

Frankie Roberto: Frankie is a UX developer for online craft marketplace Folksy, where he works on usability and website development. He’s also a co-founder of Open Heritage, a not-for-profit which run the popular Open Plaques website, which provides open data and content about historic plaques installed on buildings all over the World. Frankie will be offering a developer’s perspective on what cultural organisations might do with their data, along a realistic appraisal of the kinds of things third parties might want to do with it.

Steve Devine & Julian Hartley: Steve is New Media Officer at The Manchester Museum and Whitworth Art Gallery. Julian is completing a practice based PhD as a researcher in residence at the Whitworth Art Gallery and Manchester Museum. Having opened collection datasets at Culture Hack North, Steve and Julian will be explaining the processes undertaken and looking at the public use and re-use of that data, across a series of different technologies and contexts.