RE: Mauritius Open Data Readiness Assessment

From: S Moonesamy <sm+mu_at_elandsys.com>
Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 04:09:15 -0700

Dear Mr Hawabhay,
At 08:41 25-05-2015, Rajnish Hawabhay wrote:
>We will soon post a link to Open Data concept on the website of the ministry.

Thank you for reverting back to me. I would be grateful if you could
send the link to the Mauritius Internet Users once the information
is available on the web site of the Ministry.

>The readiness assessment will provide a valuable consultative
>platform to identify datasets that need to be released because
>demand exists for them. However, we are thinking of starting with
>budget, labour and other stats that are already in public domain but
>need to be structured to confirm to Open Data principles.

Publishing datasets about the budget and labour as Open Data is
useful as there are organisations outside Mauritius which monitor the
economy and employment. I am interested in datasets which could be
used to provide information which people in Mauritius can relate to:

   Exchange Rates - this dataset can be used by web site selling
products or services
   Schools - this dataset is useful to people interested in analyzing
the distribution
             of students in primary, secondary, and tertiary schools.
   Crime - this dataset can provide a view of crime trends
   Road accidents - this dataset might be used to create awareness
about road safety
   Consumer Prices - this dataset can be used to inform the consumer
about the prices
                     of consumer products which are currently
monitored by government
   Water - this dataset is to monitor the water levels in the reservoirs
   Weather - this dataset is to provide people with information about
temperature, rainfall
             wind conditions, etc.
   Bus Tariff - this dataset can be used to provide information about bus fares
   Bus Routes - this dataset can be used to provide information about public
                transportation

It is not possible to explore the possibilities of Open Data without
access to geographic information as some applications require
interactive maps for data visualization.

I share the view that Open Government Data will be fulfilling only if
we can keep the dialogue going and if the government can provide
datasets that are valuable to people in Mauritius.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy
Received on Tue May 26 2015 - 11:09:45 PST