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Opening up public sector information (PSI) for value-added reuse by citizens not only helps unlock innovation to develop more services for citizens' convenience, but also creates business opportunities and contributes to the development of our knowledge-based economy in the long run, the Government Chief Information Officer, Mr Daniel Lai, said today (February 18).
Officiating at the award presentation ceremony of Apps in the City - PSI Application Competition, Mr Lai said, "PSI produced, collected and disseminated by the Government or public bodies, including information on weather, traffic conditions and economic and geographic data, is closely related to people's daily lives. This information is valuable for perusal and reference, and contains hidden treasures for us to unearth and utilise."
The Government launched an 18-month PSI pilot scheme at the end of March 2011 to make available real-time traffic and geo-referenced public facility data through the Data.One portal (data.one.gov.hk) for free download and reuse by the public. Such information is presented in computer data formats and can be flexibly manipulated for developing mobile applications which are gaining popularity.
"The public response to the pilot scheme has been enthusiastic. Since its launch, main roads traffic speed data has exceeded 10 000 downloads a day, and there are over 600 000 daily downloads of traffic snapshot images. Within just 10 months, more than 10 mobile applications developed with PSI have been launched. Most of them can be downloaded free of charge and have been highly rated by users. This shows that these applications bring convenience to citizens' lives."
To promote awareness of PSI among the general public and encourage people to develop products using this information, the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer commissioned the Internet Professional Association to implement the Data.One Campaign together with the Vocational Training Council and the Hong Kong Geographic Information System Association. Twenty-nine seminars and workshops were held, with attendance by students and other citizens surpassing 1 600 man-time. Another highlight of the campaign is the Apps in the City - PSI Application Competition, in which 18 and 23 entries were received under the product and concept streams respectively.
Mr Lai presented prizes to the competition's awardees at the ceremony and toured an exhibition of the winning entries. He said the projects were creative and could meet the needs of the public. "We are excited to see that the winning mobile applications and concept suggestions have demonstrated the entrants' sharp understanding of our livelihoods and exceptional proficiency in information technology," he added.
Ends/Saturday, February 18, 2012
Issued at HKT 12:30
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