A great success! Accompanied by some coffee and a lit fireplace the participants of the 8th BigDataGemeenten session got some new insights of how other municipalities utilize Big Data.
Keynote speakers
Tom Pots | Advocate of working data-driven | Zaanstad
In many municipalities there is a belief that a smart use of data leads to better results for citizens, such as cleaner streets, safer neighborhoods, better facilities, etc. But how do you transform this belief into tangible results based on data? This requires more than hiring one data analyst and having him carry out a few assignments. Where do you start? What are essential parts of your approach? How do you guide this change? What should you organize? What are important pitfalls and success factors? In this BigDataGemeenten Tom Pots made clear what data-driven work requires from you and your municipality and how you can take the first step to address social issues on the basis of data.
Jan Koers | Information Manager | Haarlem
Haarlem has invested heavily in the further digitization of its services and business operations. Based on a robust enterprise architecture and the shaping of central data management, Haarlem wants to be able to respond flexibly to the rapidly changing information society. Furthermore, Jan Koers showed off the actions that the municipality of Haarlem has taken to achieve this.
Ard Mulder | Programme Manager | The Hague
A year ago, the municipality of The Hague talked about the start of her exciting Big Data journey at the BigDataGemeenten meeting in Amersfoort. Now, they can show projects and results on the basis of what has been achieved and where they currently stand. They explained two projects in which they realized and are realizing predictive models with partners from all over the city and country.
Jean-Piere | Programme Director Smart Cities | KPN
Jean-Pierre showed us what is required to build a data-driven city, also known as Smart City, from the point of view of KPN. Topics that were discussed are: a changing world, new technology, and social paradigms.
Some of the questions that came up after the group discussions:
How do you know if the data you are using is of high quality?
The most important thing is to have feedback moments with your team to communicate how they experienced working with the data. Also, be critical at visualization stage of the data and ask yourself questions like: what does this data actually represent?
How do you deal with the privacy of data?
One way to keep the privacy of the public in mind is to leave out the personal details during analyses, instead use categories and encrypt sensitive information. In addition, the border of privacy is mainly based on moral choices. The goal of municipalities is to improve the services that are provided to citizens, that is why it is important for municipalities to look for that border and to keep experimenting to get the best results.
If you have an unlimited budget for Big Data, what would you focus on?
Visit the next edition of the BigDataGemeenten event to find out the answer to this question and more. Keep an eye on future BigDataGemeenten events by going to the website and enroll for future meetups.
The experience
‘I am glad I went to the BigDataGemeenten meetup since it was very inspiring for our own data science projects. Also, I was able to get in contact with some resourceful people that have different views on the use of data science in municipalities – Participant BigDataGemeenten’
Are you an interested and want to know more about BigDataGemeenten? Contact Lisanne or visit the website for more information.