Information Economy

If you have ever been online, watched a movie or taken a medicine you have been a user of information. Today information in the form of software, databases and innovations is becoming more important than ever before. Information is becoming main thing we make, trade and use.

This is a new world being built on “bits”. Its virtual nature makes it different from the physical world of bread and land and cars which can only have one user at a time. By contrast, information can be used by many at the same time. The implications of this are huge. It makes a world of open information both possible and desirable — that is a world in which all public information can be openly and freely used, shared and built on.

Open Knowledge › Open leaders programme ›

Writings & projects

Writings and Essays

Requiem for an Internet Dream

The dream of the Internet is dying. Killed by its children. We have barely noticed its demise and done even less to save it. It was a dream of openness, of unprecedented technological and social freedom to connect and innovate. Whilst expressed in technology, it was a dream that was political and social in essence: a dream of equality and liberty. The equality of opportunity and standing and the liberty to participate and innovate.

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Data Matters Conference

I will be hosted at the ‘Data Matters: work effectively in the new HE landscape’ conference in London, United Kingdom, for a talk on 3 November 2017. This event will bring together data, digital and quality experts and practitioners across higher education sector to discuss the topical issues around data and its use. I will be focusing on on the impact that data can have on our decision-making and how we can create data systems to support the public sector and build the communities and capabilities to use that insight to drive change.

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Towards an Open Information Age Talk at YES Conference

I will be hosted by the YES Conference 2017 in Tallinn, Estonia, for a keynote presentation on 12 September 2017. Will the digital revolution give us information democracies or information empires? The answer lies in a political choice, a choice between open or closed. Either making information open and freely accessible to all, or, closing it off and having it owned and controlled by the few. This choice matters everywhere from inequality to freedom.

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Featured projects