Open data As An Economic Driver

The role of open data movement throughout the periods of time shifted from the transparency of government to other beneficial conclusions. Beside the sole purpose of open data to uncover the transparency of governments and its policies for human development and country’s progress, free open access of data is also play a significant role as an economic driver. One of the significant outcome to publicize the governmental and private business data for common people and potential investors can easily be seen on an economic growth. Economies across the world are largely data-driven, the easy access, use and reuse of governmental and large companies data creates a powerful trade resources. Government and big business giants of all over the world open there large amount of data to easy access, use and reuse for public and investment companies to attract local and international businesses to work in that region.
The United States and The United Kingdome are foremost who recognize the value of open data as an economic indicator and adopted the most developed and extensive open data policy. The easy access, use and reuse of public sector data and large industrial firms increase the transparency which creates the opportunity for more business and investment opportunities and shape the economic growth. According to Gurin 2014, Ex-president of United States of America acknowledged that the more availability of government sectors across the public channel enable our economy to establish more businesses and encourages entrepreneurs to startup with the new products and services which haven’t discover yet. More availability and transparency of public and private sector institution data reduce the risk factors for international businesses and investors. According to study report of the World Bank 2014, the easy access and availability of open data could benefited global economy up to worth or 3 to 5 Trillian dollars per years in the sectors of consumer products, transportation, education, gas and oil, electricity, consumer finance and health care.
The open data not only attract investors to initiate new businesses but also provide opportunities to established new market segments, defined new services and commodities, and also to improve the operation’s effectiveness and efficiency.
Besides the importance of open data in global world, there are also some challenges that have to tackle to improve the transparency of governmental policy and economical condition of a country. For instance, the lower priority of open data in developing countries in one of the major concern for international investors and economic growth. World Bank is playing a significant role to improve the open data policies in developing countries and also to uncover the corruption history of countries to establish better governmental policy to make country more credible, trustworthy and transparent (World Bank 2014). There is still little evidence that open data attract huge investments and businesses in developing economies. However, the gradually demand of open data of governments and local businesses of developing economies among international investors establish a guideline to decide which market is good to invest and also helpful for young entrepreneurs to launch new service and product based businesses based on open data resources.
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