The City of Cape Town today hosted a group of master’s students from the University of Manchester to share knowledge on the Open Data Portal, its current Data Strategy and its Smart Cities projects.

Executive Mayor Dan Plato set the tone for an enthusiastic and meaningful information exchange when he surprised the visitors with a warm Cape Town welcome.

Now in its fifth year, the sharing of ideas and knowledge through this exchange programme empowers the students with a wealth of information on how to implement an open data portal. In addition, students are given an in-depth peek into the elements that make up a Smart City.

‘This is a proud moment for us to be able to share what we have learnt about all things data. The Open Data Portal promotes the use of the City’s data for broader social and economic benefit,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Corporate Services, Councillor Sharon Cottle.

The students then take back the knowledge they have gained on the City’s systems and try to apply it in their home countries, either through policy changes, or upgrades to their own systems.

‘The portal functionality has been incrementally enhanced. Additional plans are afoot to further improve the user experience of the portal as well as the content. One of the initiatives aims to create a collaborative space on the portal for users to share information or case studies on how they have made use of the City’s data. To this end we can tap into the group of students for their ideas,’ added Councillor Cottle.

The Open Data Portal makes government data and information available in order to advance the ideal of government transparency and also to stimulate social and economic benefits in the use of the published data. Data is made public while protecting the information of the residents involved, i.e. no names, and identity numbers are revealed.

The students’ research interests lie in information and communication technology for development.

Source: City Of Cape Town