Back To The Future With Data

by Keith McDonald
I've been having a debate with a friend about time travel.

It started with a discussion around where you'd go if you could go back in time and escalated into making a top 5 list of the moments in history we'd want to visit. One of the first places my buddy said he'd want to go is November 5, 1955. Anyone know what is significant about that day?

I didn't get it at first but that was the day Doc Brown invented the Flux Capacitor in the Back To The Future movie series. For those of you who don't know or remember, the Flux Capacitor is the thing that made time travel possible.

Well, I didn't blow one of my choices on a fictional movie time period but it did occur to me that Open Data actually gives us a chance to do time travel right now - kind of like having the data version of a Flux Capacitor.

DATA eh? Interviews Reham Gorgis, Open Data Coordinator, City of Toronto

By the DATA eh? Team 
DATA eh?: Hi Reham, we're presenting another in our series of interviews with the DATA eh? team and, guess what, you're next!

RG: Ah, OK.

DATA eh?: Tell us what you do as part of the team.

RG: I help coordinate all the requests for data that come to us through various channels like twitter and the Open Data mail box (opendata@toronto.ca). I sort these into ones needing answers that I can provide or ones I can’t answer and have to send to division staff. Beyond that, I also initiate contact with the client divisions – introduce City staff to the initiative and set up initial appointments so we can get to know their area and what data they have and host.

DATA eh?: You're actually one of our best known people because you make these first contacts for us.

School Of Data - Shades Of School Of Rock

By the DATA eh? team


Rufus Pollock, Director and Co-Founder of the Open Knowledge Foundation, and Philip Schmidt, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Peer 2 Peer University announced recently a School of Data.

We're reminded of the movie: School of Rock. Where we see the parallel in the call for support is the unlimited potential for what the school can be. Like the School of Rock, We expect a number of brilliant people (and are not all the people working in this budding area, "brilliant"?) to bring amazing ideas to the table. And, like the movie, there may be quite a difference in how the school might come together.

We put in an expression of interest - which is not to say we think we are "brilliant" but we sure like this idea.

DATA eh? #16