David Alston eyes province as leader in digital society

New Brunswick is hoping to use the Canadian Open Data Summit in Saint John today to put other provinces on notice that it intends to become a digital leader.

David Alston, the chief innovation officer for Introhive and a leading proponent of expanding the province's digital footprint, said opening up government data is no longer being considered innovative.

Alston said it is now expected that data will be open to the public and it is up to governments to embrace that movement.

He said the people coming to the summit on Thursday in Saint John willsee innovative ideas that are happening around the world. But it will also give New Brunswick the chance to show off its progress.

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"Our goal in New Brunswick is to put ourselves on the map as the leading digital society, living lab, if you want to call it, for North America,"Alstonsaid.

"That includes not only becoming a leader in open data but also in combining that with other digital assets, like leading in cybersecurity and leading in e-identity and when we combine that with leading in start-ups that are building on top of that and active citizens that are able to use the data to help them."

The open data summit is holding a series of discussion panels and inviting guest speakers to address the conference.

Digital lab created

Last October, the New Brunswick government announced a digital lab would be created that would allow entrepreneurs and government officials to collaborate on projects using public data.

The open data initiative had two elements. One would see the provincial government release more of its public information in accessible formats so any citizen will be able to use it.

There would also be a "digital service accelerator," which would allow the entrepreneurs to work with public data in a secure environment with the idea of creating innovative services or platforms.

With the Open Data Summit coming to New Brunswick, Alston said he expects the first measures coming from that initiative will be announced soon.

Open data isn't just for the tech savvy. Alston said there are numerous practical applications that could beadopted.

Right now, if a person needs to change their address or their name, they are responsible for going to various different departments to update their information.

Alston said if the government assembled citizens' data into a "single identity" and put it into a secure environment then people could go online, make a change and it would be instantly updated.

He said that be convenient for citizens and efficient for government.

The open data enthusiast also pointed to the website Propertize, which was created by a Saint John-area developer Shawn Peterson.

The page uses property assessment data scraped from Service New Brunswick and allows homeowners to compare property tax assessments. The data, however, has been difficult to access.

Alston said making property assessment data easier for all citizens to access is a priority.

The open data advocate also pointed to recent announcementfrom IBM that it was adding 100 cybersecurity jobs in Fredericton over three years as a positive development.

When he travelled to Estonia to see how that country adopted open data, he said cybersecurity was an important industry that also developed as the government was pushing more digital governance boundaries.

Alston said it's important to embrace boththe innovation that comes with open data with the need to have a strong cybersecurity industry.

Alston has also been a proponent of offering coding courses in schools, similar to countries, such as Estonia.