Page 733 - Shaping smarter and more sustainable cities - Striving for sustainable development goals

7.4 Open data movement in China

There were only three non‐user friendly government open data sites and a smattering of open data
enthusiasts who often had to find their own data sources and even create hardware to generate
their own data in China. They were not a formally connected group but rather, individuals who
created open data apps out of personal interest. Now, the recently launched open data community
is trying to create a multi‐disciplinary network of businesses, research institutes, and NGOs
interested in open data.
The open data community is currently working on three projects, one of which is a comprehensive
timeline of open data in China where OFKN China has potentially traced the open data "movement"
to its beginnings. According to the timeline, the Chinese government's first open data website was
Shanghai's internal data directory launched sometime around September 2011, though the date is
not clear. The government does little to publicize the launch of these sites. The current data list
includes 425 data sets. The Shanghai government later released some data on the Shanghai data
portal (see Figure 6), launched in December 2012. Beijing's open data site went online in
October 2012 with 4,000 datasets to date, followed by that of the National Bureau of Statistics site
in September 2013.
Several months later, China held its first ever hackathon using public data called code for climate
change. The creator of a hackerspace called Xindanwei, meaning 'new work unit,' which is a play on
the government work units. This is the first time that the government is providing all this data to
the start‐up and creative community and is working together with them by providing data sets. Also,
top researchers from all over China are providing insights and knowledge.

Figure 6 – The timeline provides the history of open data in China

ITU‐T's Technical Reports and Specifications 723