The first ever Open Finland seminar introduced the emergence of MyData into wider discussion. MyData can be vaguely described as personal data over which an individual has legal and practical control. An individual’s right to manage data collected of herself is a crucial predeterminate of a fair knowledge society and it can potentially enable several benefits, such as personalised healthcare.

Several open data initiatives were also introduced.

Nearhood

Nearhood is a media platform and a meeting point for all things local. It responds to the emerging trend of locality as a counterforce to globalisation. From following neighbourhood news, discussions and events to buying and selling and offering help, Nearhood is both for creating content yourself, communicating with other residents, and for finding information relevant for the area submitted elsewhere on the internet.

Suosittelija.fi

Running out of books to read? Using anonymised data of a customer’s book loaning history, the new Suosittelija.fi website is able to give personalised reading recommendations. Available to all library users in the Helsinki Metropolitan area.

Monitoring data on Finnish Government’s performance

The monitoring data on the current government programme will be opened to the general public online. The data will be updated monthly and will among other information present the ministries responsible for each entry and a description of the progress made in each implementation. The system is still in an early stage and its usability value will be increased in the following years.

Opening environment data

The databases collected by the various authorities and research institutes responsible for environment and natural resources will be joined together to form a large environment data bank. The Envibase database will hold information on a variety of research as well as material on species and satellite maps. The future aim is to also make sightings made by ordinary citizens a part of Envibase.

The open databases of the City of Helsinki

More than 800 databases of the City of Helsinki have been opened to public use. Members of the public can now take a look into, for example, the family roots of Korkeasaari zoo animals in the ZIMS database, information on contaminated land areas in the Piltti register as well as medical records of the occupational health care in Acute database. Helsinki is the first Finnish city opening its databases to wider public.