Open Data Showcase - 10 Years of being Radically Open by Open innovations & Partners

Humans are social creatures. Sharing stories was the way we imparted knowledge and passed on skills. We all benefit from sharing success and learning from others. This is exactly why we created our Showcase when Leeds Digital Festival launched in 2016.

Due to popular demand, and to kick start our birthday celebrations, we will be bringing our Showcase back on September 28th 2023. We will be 10 years old in November and over the last 10 years of Open Innovations we have learned and accomplished a lot. We were fresh faced pioneers 10 years ago, opening one of the first  co-working spaces in Leeds, facilitating and convening new collaborative tech, digital & data 'unconferences' & 'hackathons'  and showing people & organisations the benefits of using, sharing & publishing data using the web. Ten years on, we are continuing with our pioneering aims and invite you to join us as we put to use our knowledge and experience of the Leeds & region tech ecosystem to focus our innovation on a gap we see that needs to be filled; the underperformance of the North of England's economy.

So, if you are just dipping your toe into the world of data and want to see the great and good that can be done with it, the Showcase should be your first port of call. If you are familiar with Open Data and ready to put it into action then come along and learn from others, see if you can shortcut a project with work that has already been done, and if you have a point of view on the North's economy then join in you will be most welcome. Tickets are available via Eventbrite. 

We couldn't have succeeded in existing (without funding) for this long without the support and input from our sponsors, friends and partners so we are happy that some of them have agreed to come and share their experience of working with us, the challenges and benefits of open data, the tangible outcomes of their projects, the difference the work has made and why its important that we continue with our mission. Hear from;

• Paul Connell - Founder, Open Innovations & The Data City
• Tom Forth - Head of Data, Open Innovations & The Data City
• Christian Spence - Economics Lead, Open Innovations
• Gilliam Williamson - Head of System Forecasting, Northern Powergrid 
• Sarah Mace -  Head of Experience Design, Leeds 2023 
• Andrea Barry - Principal Economist, Youth Futures Foundation 
• Fiona Bolam - Head of Economic Policy, Leeds City Council
• Andrew Dyson - Leeds Managing Partner, DLA Piper
• Andrew McPhillips - Chief Economist, The Northern Powerhouse Partnership 
  

The Showcase will take place in person at our events space in Munro House. There will be plenty of tea, coffee, cake and cookies on offer and in the afternoon if you feel like it stay a while, chat with others, ask questions, get us involved with a data project and find out more -  we are a friendly and helpful bunch.