Isle of Man Open Data Report
I have been invited by the Department of Economic Development to the next Ebusiness Development Group meeting to explain open data, to recommend some action points and to shortlist some potential projects.
I have drafted some reference notes but they will need some more unpaid hours. C’est la vie!
#OGDCAMP DAY 1
theme – real value typically not presentations but discussions and then impact on your own thoughts
didn’t fully appreciate sunlight foundation contribution to ecosystem
key issue is limited people in most countries and lots struggle to carry on with same hours n expenses – can okf host a clearing house to match funding n crowdsourced microfinance e.g. people that asked for a travel bursary but didnt get one?? (i was ok with airmiles from previous life in wealth mgt group offices systems audits)
mentioned to kenya speaker that tanzania team in isle of man to learn open parliament, etc (world bank i think)
liked brazil talk – always good to see progress in countries with large populations
no specific talks on real time sensors open data – smart city stuff
could open bank project work offshore?? perhaps a bank with low percentage offshore business, an opportunity to differentiate – talked about different levels and kyc procedures with “peps” in particular (politically exposed persons that might prefer transparency)
Open Data: Isle of Man Progress Report
I attended #OGDCAMP 2010 in London and helped maintain the momentum in a session with David Eaves and Joey Hutchinson. I kept in touch with a couple of new contacts. I scheduled an IT professional body event to kickstart a local open data community:
www.bcs.org.im/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/bcs-feb-v5.pdf
The Speaker of the House of Keys was in the audience and contributed to the debate on the pending FOI legislation. We have just had our general election and ministers will be appointed in due course by the new chief minister. An important point in open data circles will be any proactive publication and data format.
Progressed an SMS updates agreement between Twitter and Manx Telecom but low usage to date.
Helped Chris Taggart with the Isle of Man on opencorporates.com and other offshore jurisdictions such as Gibraltar, Cyprus and Liechtenstein based on previous experience in financial services. Learned about webscraping with Python and Ruby on ScraperWiki.
Google Street View went live in June 2011, followed by a positive EU benchmark report from CapGemini:
http://www.gov.im/lib/news/ded/governmentachiev.xml
I reviewed official Isle of Man websites and noted, for example, national statistics were “locked” in PDF documents. Building on experiments with WordPress.com and Ideascale.com, I decided to launch an independent open data blog data.iomgov.com in the absence of any other central point. I uploaded some cleaned data to the blog but very surprised WordPress does not include csv in the upload options!
I made the most of pushing the toddler around in a pram to maximise sleep with street parking data collection and developed the Isle of Man Parking Map in Google Maps.
Developed a point and click front end to OpenCorporates in Google Maps with the Isle of Man.
More recently, worked on opensic.com with Chris Taggart, Shaun Emerson, Andrew Stott et al and I had a very productive meeting with Treasury to prioritise and progress datasets.
Graeme Jones MBCS
Lateral Thinking Project Manager
Isle of Man search engine
Updated search.iomgov.com to include judiciary and think tank websites:
www.courts.im
www.judgments.im
www.iomgov.com
IPA – September 2011
226 regulated corporate entities as at 5th September 2011 with 5 added and 8 removed since 15th March 2011 (net down 3)
Added:
Capita Life and Pensions Services (Isle of Man) Limited; Insurance Manager
Cell EG Authorised; Insurer (Captive)
Friends Life Company Limited; Insurance Permit Holder (Life)
Hansell Underwriting Limited; General Insurance Business Intermediary
Island Financial Solutions Limited; General Insurance Business Intermediary
Removed:
AXA Sun Life plc; Insurance Permit Holder (Life)
BAE Systems Reinsurance (Isle of Man) Limited; Authorised Insurer (Captive)
CGI Intermediaries Limited; General Insurance Business Intermediary
Chartis Insurance Management Services (IOM) Limited; Insurance Manager
Interbuild Insurance Limited; Authorised Insurer (Captive)
Man Re PCC Limited; Authorised Insurer (Captive)
ML Insurance (IOM) Limited; Authorised Insurer (Captive)
O2 Assurance Limited; Authorised Insurer (Captive)
Datasets League Table
#01 United States of America
#02 Canada*
#03 United Kingdom with 7400+
#04 New Zealand with 71
#05 Canada – Toronto with 66
opencorporates map
I helped Chris Taggart at opencorporates.com with the Isle of Man data, some other offshore jurisdictions and corporate entities/structures.
Pending tweaks but I have developed a visual front end to opencorporates.com to help demonstrate to officials, to track total progress with colour coded links and to help end users without English:
Commonwealth Youth Games 2011
I was surprised that tickets are not available with online sales.
Information regarding ticket prices and dates and times of events can be found via the following links:
Manx residents can purchase their tickets from the Welcome Centre at the Sea Terminal and the Villa Marina Reception or via the Ticketing Hotline on +44 (0)1624 600555.
Off-island spectators can also purchase tickets from the above ticket outlets or alternatively contact Regency Travel, the CYG2011 Preferred Travel Agent to arrange a travel, accommodation and ticket package. Email Regency Travel at cyg2011@isleofmanbreaks.com or by phone on +44 (0)1624 694456.
Manx Telecom Twitter SMS updates
Graeme Jones, Director, BCS Isle of Man and Graham Shimmin, Product Manager, Manx Telecom are pleased to confirm that, further to feedback from the January event, a contract has now been signed with Twitter.
There’s now an easy way to use Twitter without having to access the internet. Manx Telecom customers can send their ‘Tweets’ via an SMS text message – it’s the simplest and quickest way to update your Twitter profile. All you have to do is register for the Twitter via SMS service by texting ‘Register’ to 89887 or by logging in to your Twitter account and visiting the Mobile section of your Twitter profile.
Tweets are charged at standard SMS rates and you can send Tweets to your timeline by simply sending the message to 89887 (max 140 characters). ‘Mentions’ will be sent to you via SMS and you can Mention another user by simply adding their Twitter username – @manxtelecom, for example – to your Tweet. You can also use Twitter via SMS in the following ways:
Send a Direct Message to a user via SMS by sending ‘D username and your message’ to 89887 Ex. “D @manxtelecom hello”
Follow a user by sending follow username to 89887 Ex. “follow @manxtelecom”
Turn on notifications of a user so you receive every Tweet of theirs via SMS by sending On Username Ex. “On @manxtelecom”
Further commands can be found at http://www.manxtelecom.com/support/mobile/twitter-via-sms.aspx
Voirrey Barron, Manx Telecom’s Marketing Communications Manager, commented:
“We know many of our customers love using Twitter, and this new service is the easiest and quickest way to Tweet. It’s simple to register and within a few minutes you can be using SMS to update your profile.”
