SMK Open nominated for Open Data Award 2018
The first Danish Open Data Award is presented 2 March 2018 at the IT University of Copenhagen
Open data are gaining ground all over the world, including Denmark. In the last couple of years, many museums, archives and libraries have provided open access to digitised cultural heritage, and government bodies like The Danish Geodata Agency have released their data to free public use. This is opening up new powerful opportunities for citizens to engage with, study, repurpose and remix large sets of high quality trustworthy data collected by public institutions over many years.
To celebrate and encourage this development, Open Knowledge Denmark has instituted an Open Data Award that will be presented for the first time ever today, on the occasion of the global Open Data Day.
SMK Open is proud and amazed to be represented among the three nominees. It’s a very strong field we’re in, featuring Bo Fristed [link no longer active], Head of IT in the municipality of Aarhus, nominated for his remarkable efforts to coordinate and strengthen access to local and regional government data through Open Data DK; and Marianne Thyrring, director of The Danish Meteorological Institute [link no longer active], nominated for her important work to prepare the release of Denmark’s climate and weather data.
Not least, we are very happy that in their nomination, Open Knowledge Denmark emphasises how SMK Open is creating frameworks for creative reuse and user engagement, for instance through Wiki Labs Culture [link no longer active], where wikipedians, volunteers and cultural heritage people join forces to enrich the open encyclopedia Wikipedia in monthly meetups and through our dedicated Facebook group.
Whoever wins the award, we are deeply honoured that our collaborative work to strengthen access to and usage of our valuable shared cultural heritage is being recognised in this way.