OREANDA-NEWS. February 06, 2015. Capgemini Consulting, the strategy and transformation consulting arm of the Capgemini Group, will lead this three-year engagement, co-ordinating a number of consortium members and subcontractors, including Capgemini’s Group subsidiary - Sogeti, Intrasoft International, the Open Data Institute, Fraunhofer FOKUS, con terra, the University of Southampton and time.lex.

The consortium will support public administrations in each of the 39 countries with the implementation of policies regarding open data, to ensure significant uptake on the publication and supply of open data, and to provide evidence on the economic impact of the re-use of public data resources, as detailed in the recent G8 Charter. This includes promoting knowledge on the organizational and technical requirements to foster the publication of open data resources, providing training, developing strategies for interaction with user groups and promoting the use of re-use friendly licensing conditions. Private sector players will also be engaged to best make use of open data for the creation of new products and services, while citizens will be equipped to make more informed choices. The project will cover the whole data value chain from progress on the EU’s aid spend by country, through to detailed information on research projects funded by the EU or data on pollutant release and transfer from industrial facilities.

In addition to developing and launching the European Open Data Portal, the contract will include services to enable the viewing of published public data resources collected by public administrations in EU Member States and the other countries of the European Economic Area (EEA)2 on (open) data portals. Services will also include the preparation of analytical reports, a study on the economic impact of the publishing of public data resources by public administrations and a report on the sustainability of (open) data portal infrastructures.

Dinand Tinholt, Vice President and EU Lead at Capgemini Consulting, said “More and more volumes of data are published every day, every hour, every minute, every second; across every geography – large and small. With the increasing digitization of society, the amount of data across the world is set to increase exponentially. For the EU two main questions arise: How can the EU ensure the accessibility and re-use of information collected by public administrations? And: What is the value of this information? This strategic project is at the heart of all the Open and Big Data initiatives of public administrations across Europe. It will also serve as a platform to engage with private players, of all sizes, operating in the field of open data and predictive analytics.”

As a leading provider of IT and data services, Capgemini has the expertise and experience in delivering big data projects. Open data, along with big data and the actionable insights that managed analytics can bring is at the heart of Capgemini’s priorities.