Connecticut Makes Open Government Push

IMG_0522

Connecticut is launching a new open data and open government effort including the state’s first online portal. The efforts come through an executive order signed by Governor Malloy. The Governor explained that the purpose of the order is to display data in its rawest form, before it has been aggregated and analyzed.

Governor Malloy’s Executive Order No. 39 creates the Connecticut Open Data Portal, which will serve as an online portal where data collected across all state government agencies will be shared with the public. Once launched, it will be located at http://data.ct.gov.

The executive order instructs all executive branch agency heads appointed by the Governor to begin the process of collecting the data, which includes lists, tables, charts, graphs or other non-narrative forms and that is generally statistical or factual. Socrata will be handling portal construction. The portal will be managed and administered by Tyler Kleykamp of the Office of Policy and Management (OPM), who will serve as the portal’s Chief Data Officer (CDO). Kleykamp previously served as the coordinator of state geospatial information systems (GIS) at OPM.

According to the Governor’s office, the portal should be up and running in the next few months and they plan to take an aggressive approach to adding data and information.

“This data belongs to the people of Connecticut, and this initiative will help make that data more easily and conveniently accessible to them,” said Governor Malloy.