Open Government

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich has set in motion an action plan to increase competitiveness and quality in road works, and to improve public control mechanisms in this area, in an effort to improve the efficiency of construction and maintenance of the Russian road system.

Last week, The Things Network — 010 was launched. This is an open LoRa network for the Internet of Things (IoT) in Rotterdam. It took only six weeks to get commitment from the parties involved for the purchase and placement of two dozen LoRaWAN gateways. More will follow after the Kickstarter project for The Things Network makes access points based on open hardware available at very low cost.

The Dutch central government is to publish its procurement information on the national open data portal data.overheid.nl next month. Later this year, election results per polling station will be added as well. These and other commitments related to open data were made by the Dutch Minister of the Interior, Ronald Plasterk in a letter to the Dutch parliament last week.

On September 4-5, the Port of Rotterdam is to hold the third edition of what has now become its annual World Port Hackathon. Hackers, programmers, stakeholders and enthusiasts are invited to attend the two-day event and join the teams. Together they will work on concepts and prototypes that deploy new technologies and (open) data, aiming to strengthen the safety, sustainability and competitiveness of the port.