Digital Birmingham’s Open City – Open City is the pilot project Digital Birmingham are running with funding from the department for Communities and Local Government.

The idea behind ‘Birmingham – Open City’ is to develop a community of practice around developing new resources to empower citizens. When Digital Birmingham were working up the bid we went on the basis that we shouldn’t presume what kind of services could be developed, or indeed, what kind of data sources could be made available to develop them. Instead we’re focusing on putting some resource into generating the collaborations, discussions, creativity and debate from which new services can spring.

It all seems to be a brilliantly open and transparent approach, which is what gets me excited, with a project blog to publish results and issues along the way.

By the end of the project in August there should be an equipped project development resource room, 2 supported development events, mentoring provided to a third sector representative organisation and at least two demonstrator projects.