Web founder reveals exciting venture to get public data online

Tim Berners-Lee – the person who created the world wide web – has revealed some of the details of an exciting new project he has been working on for the Government. A new web site at www.data.gov.uk is going to make available lots of public sector data for free. The site has over 2,000 developers working on it and it is currently undergoing testing to get it ready for launch in the next few months. So far, the site has 2,500 datasets and 10 software applications have been created using the data, but it is hoped more will follow. One application created would allow people to report potholes and other road hazards across the country. Another would enable people to be alerted to any new planning application in their chosen area. One aspect of the site will involve free geographical location data from Ordnance Survey to help users to use and make sense of the data. The aim of the project is to change the way people interact with public data and make more of it accessible.