on February 26, 2016
OpenDataSoft is helping communities build portals where data can be easily accessible. Such communities can be cities, counties, universities, governments, and so on. Data can be traffic, school results, crime, or even food health inspection.
It’s always helpful to find out that Hardee’s in Chapel Hill went from 100 from 1999 to 2008… Since then, it’s struggling to go back to a perfect mark. I am being picky on Hardee’s, but the bad pupils of the class can be found here, on the Open Durham portal.
Open Data is not a new movement, but since President Obama put it on the map (around 2008), more and more interest and demand have raised. OpenDataSoft was founded in 2011 by Jean-Marc Lazard, Franck Carassus, and David Thoumas, who are now, respectively, CEO, COO, and CTO. Although the company was founded in Paris, it is now pretty active in the Triangle area (Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill in NC) and is expanding. Those gentlemen have had a previous successful experience as they worked together at Exalead, a search engine company, now part of Dassault Systems. To discover a little bit more about the usage of Open Data, I really recommend their blog and the very special map of French cheese.
Next week end, on March 5th and 6th, the Triangle Open Data Days (TODD) will be held on NC State University campus. During those 2 days of conference, one can learn about what data sources are available, what challenges are to be expected, and exchange with professionals and students. OpenDataSoft is a sponsor of the event and it will be a unique occasion to discuss with Thoumas. All the details of TODD is available on http://triangleopendataday.com/. I will be there, covering the event via @jgperrin on Twitter.