During February’s State of Open Con 24 London conference, delegates were given a real-world example of the importance of opening up data to tackle the issue of homelessness.
The panel discussion, chaired by the Open Data Institute’s (ODI) global head of policy, Resham Kotecha, explored the challenges a London local authority and a charity have faced in getting access to relevant data. The data not only helps in making informed policy decisions, but can also enable the services the charity provides to be more targeted and potentially more effective.
“There’s also lots of data sets that are open and perhaps not being used to the best of their ability, or not being publicised in a way that means people are able to access them,” he said.
