The Sunlight Foundation’s Impacts of Open Data report (April 2014), identifies five reasons why civic leaders and citizens should care about open data.
- Create transparency
- Empower accountability
- Enhance efficiency and lead to cost savings
- Improve service quality
- Increase public participation
Established private sector consultants, McKinsey & Company, echo and amplify the wisdom of using open data in pursuit of economic benefits. They argue that open data could help unlock $3-5 trillion in cost savings across sectors such as education, transportation, health care, and consumer finance.
- Open data: Unlocking innovation and performance with liquid information (October 2013)
- Public-sector digitization: The trillion-dollar challenge (December 2014)
- What executives should know about open data (January 2014)
To Learn More
- How do we improve open data for police accountability? (Sunlight Foundation, 2014)
- How government can unlock economic benefits from open data: Part I (Government Technology, 2014)
- Data for the public good: From healthcare to finance to emergency response, data holds immense potential to help citizens and government (Radar, 2012)
- Which of your local candidates support transparency? (Sunlight Foundation, 2013)
- Open Data Benefits (The World Bank)
- Open Data Applications (The World Bank)