The new open government platforms are coming fast and furious these days. NuCivic is the latest entrant with its NuData product. The company is partnering with Acquia and Carahsoft to launch NuData Enterprise, the first fully open source software-as-a-service (SaaS) open data management solution. Based on Drupal, NuData will allow governments to comply with open data mandates and help developers build businesses based on government data.
Several governmental organizations have already tested and deployed NuData’s solutions to meet their open data mandates. Early NuData customers and collaborators on the underlying open source project (DKAN) include several federal agencies in the U.S., cities in Germany (Cologne and Bonn), and civic organizations worldwide (Open Puerto Rico, OpenOakland, DataNinja).
NuData basically offers users an enterprise version of Drupal for open source development which allows IT shops to handle website and application building in-house while avoiding vendor lock-in. CivSource has previously spoken with Acquia around their other work with public sector clients. NuCivic CEO Andrew Hoppin is also a veteran of the Civic tech space more broadly.
“Now for the first time, governments can employ an ‘OpenSaaS’ approach to open data mandates,” said Hoppin.