This morning I had the pleasure of joining the Mayor, Controllers, Councilors and other citizens at the City’s Board of Control meeting today. This was a special meeting as it directly affects me and what I am passionate about – Open Data. To say the least, Open Data here in London is one step closing to being adopted. The recommendation for an Open Data Initiative here in London was passed by the Board of Control with no opposition.

So what does this mean? This means that we are one step closer to joining the rankings of other municipalities such as Vancouver, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa with Open Data here in Canada. But we must keep in mind, that we are still very far behind and have a lot of catching up to do in my opinion.

At Monday’s (July 26, 2010) Council Meeting, the Open Data London initiative and motion will be on the floor again for its approval by the council. If passed, we are hoping to see by the end of September 2010, a data catalog in which these data sets will be available and new applications such as eatsure.ca and NextStop can be created.