Taiye Lambo Vincenzo Aquaro
Karl Chambers
Ali Al Khouri
ency, openness and co-operation, synergy
and sharing.
“The concept of open data has developed in
the age of information we are currently liv-
ing in to mean the added value of the data
being shared by a third party through the
Internet with a format that allows him to re-
use it, particularly that the importance and
effect of open data have covered all walks
of life”, Al Khouri said.
Talking about its benefits in today’s world, Al
Khouri believed that open data supports op-
eration, creates job opportunities and backs
the strategic planning process, which the
data of PESTL environment constitutes one
of the criteria it depends on. Open data also
boosts competitiveness, enhances creativ-
ity for the benefit of the society and markets
in general and corrects the economic and
social decisions at the small and medium
levels, enabling individuals, companies and
organizations to have access to the infor-
mation necessary to make investments
and take horizontal and vertical expansion
decisions, he said, adding that open data
further supports confidence, consistency
and collaboration among people so as to
boost their understanding and comprehen-
sion. In addition, open data weakens cor-
ruptibility as a result of the existing public
accountability systems and finally supports
economic prosperity and social security, he
said .
Vincenzo Acquaro, Head of eGovernment
at the United Nations, called on the coun-
tries of the world to devise national strate-
gies for open data in view of its pivotal role
in developing government performance and
upgrading public services .
Acquaro praised the achievements made
by the UAE in the field of making data ac-
cessible and enhancing the transparency
and disclosure approach, thereby becom-
ing one of the leading countries in terms
of relying on the concepts of open data for
strategic planning as part of its project to
build eGovernment and its effort to shift to
smart government .
He affirmed that studies indicate that GCC
countries, particularly the UAE, would over-
take the European countries in the field of
eMaturity and eGgovernment practices if
they maintained the current pace of devel-
opment .
Charles Philip Coupet, Business Develop-
ment Manager at Dell, US, stated that gov-
ernments and organizations are facing the
challenge of managing and linking many
systems and applications, noting that orga-
nizations depend on the approach to ser-
vice infrastructures for integration aimed at
confronting these challenges.
Cyril Voisan, Regional Technology Officer at
Microsoft Gulf, underlined the importance of
open data for developing the customer ser-
vice concepts in both the public and private
sectors, noting that open data can help cre-
ate new products, services and applications
that would save customers’ time and effort
and spur economic growth and innovation.
In his working paper, Carel Badenhorst,
Head Technology Practice: Middle East, Af-
rica, Turkey & Pakistan, SAS, emphasized
that the data extracted from social media
follow-up sources contain valuable informa-
tion when talking about global labor indices
and open official statistics.
Carl Chambers, President/CEO at Diligent
eSecurity International, US, stressed the
importance of protecting sensitive data re-
lated to identifying citizens, particularly in
the light of governments’ quest to shift to
smart services, while Eddy Van der Stock,
President of V-ICT-OR, Belgium, empha-
sized that open data criteria are essential
for such data to be interoperable .
According to Taiye Lambo , founder of Cloud
Assurance Inc, US, the revenues of global
cloud computing services are expected to
reach around $241 billion by 2020, noting
that information security and privacy will be-
come either a nightmare or a cloud comput-
ing enabler .
15
May
2014
