Data Liberation
I recently stumbled across Statistic Canada's Data Liberation Initiative. It's exciting to see this effort and terminology, which is shared with Google's humorously themed effort.
Another, commercial Data Liberation effort provides some good reasons this is important — Do you want fair pricing, transparent testing, faster performance, deeper analytics and straight answers? We can add, do you want to be able to take away information you contributed or paid for? Simply, in my mind, public data and even rights to code you access (like AGPL) should be a competitive factor, and in the public service or for anything of massive utility (like Facebook), something we expect.
The only problem is the Government's DLI is way too narrow. Right now it's aimed at post secondary institutions. There shouldn't be access categories, the same information should be available to 14 year olds and retired persons that's available to academics or public workers. As well, it's hardly a liberation effort when individuals have to pay to access the information ($2350 to learn about Canadian internet use in 2007). I don't think we can really say public participation and corruption, for example, are being seriously addressed until these kinds of issues are resolved, nor can any statements about what "our children" are inheriting be taken seriously.
Once this kind of data is released, we can expect greater participation and new forms of employment through crowdsourcing and other volunteer efforts (for example, making specialized information easier to understand). There are plenty of civic minded hobbyists, experts, and others who would love to understand and work on big problems, and with computers and the Internet any one person or group can achieve so much in their spare time. The trust issues don't really exist, people can learn to not trust a first glance at info just like they have with spam and wikipedia, and networked trust will become a concrete part of our reality. (Of course personal information will be protected, but access to massive correlation alone would make this a breakthrough.)
I know plenty of individuals and groups who can benefit from this data, so many problems that can be solved so we can move onto bigger ones. After taking a run at it with a friend (and ultimately failing), Michael Mulley has finally got a parliament Hansard scraper working, but the amount of effort and reliability will be in jeopardy until this information is intentionally shared.
The government's own (private) GCPedia has already been deemed important in capturing tacit knowledge and helping groups connect, following Wikipedia's model of open organizing. Past that, some things need to be "offloaded" from the government, which is already straining, to willing participants, the gigantic latent capacity that can solve problems without cost, openly and fairly creating a greater social existence that acknowledges our modern reality. This is a push back to the corporatization and governmentalization of services that people should enjoy spending their time participating in.
Toronto 43° 39' 12.53" N, 79° 23' 2.16" W Arts Dance Person Asian Origin
Lata Pada is a Canadian choreographer and Bharatanatyam dancer of Indian descent. Pada is the Founder and Artistic Director of Sampradaya Dance Creations, a dance Company that performs South Asian dance. She is also the Founder and Director of Sampradaya Dance Academy, a leading professional dance training institution that is the only South Asian dance school in North America affiliated with the prestigious, UK-based Imperial Society for Teachers of Dancing.Pada founded the dance company in 1990 because she wanted to showcase Bharatantyam dance as an art form throughout the world.
Pada, who attended Elphinstone College in Mumbai, trained under the gurus Kalaimamani Kalyanasundaram and Padmabhushan Kalanidhi Narayanan.Pada lives in Mississauga, near Toronto. Pada married geologist Vishnu Pada when she was 17 years old.
In 1985 Lata Pada and her family decided to take an extended vacation to India. On June 23 of that year Vishnu Pada and daughters Arti and Brinda died in the bombing of Air India Flight 182. Lata Pada was not aboard since she left on an earlier date to tour India for Bharatanatyam recitals in Bangalore and across India; Lata was in Mumbai rehearsing for her tour, while her husband and daughters stayed behind in Sudbury, Ontario because Brinda was graduating from high school; afterwards the three flew on Air India 182. Lata Pada became a spokesperson for the families of the victims. After the crash she created the dance piece "Revealed By Fire" in remembrance of the incident. Pada received a master's degree in fine arts from York University in 1997.
Pada married Hari Venkatacharya in September, 2000. Venkatacharya is an entrepreneur and was Managing Director of Nytric Business Partners and is the Immediate Past President of TiE Toronto. He also serves on the Boards of the Ontario Science Centre and Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences. They both met while founding the South Asian advisory committee at the Royal Ontario Museum in 1995, where they raised over $3 million Canadian dollars for Canada's first permanent South Asian Gallery.
In December 2008, she was made a Member of the Order of Canada for her contributions to the development of Bharatanatyam as a choreographer, teacher, dancer and artistic director, as well as for her commitment and support of the Indian community in Canada. Lata was also recently appointed as Adjunct Professor in the Graduate Faculty of Dance, York University, Toronto.