NEW DELHI: The Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) on Monday announced the "Open Data Week" that will see participation from all the 100 smart cities, a move aimed at ensuring a collaborative effort towards making Indian cities "data smart", according to a statement.
The ministry said all "smart cities" will be publishing high-quality datasets and data blogs on the "Smart Cities Open Data Portal".
Leading up to the "Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav - Smart Cities: Smart Urbanisation" conference scheduled to be held in Surat next month, the "Open Data Week" is part of a series of pre-event initiatives being undertaken by the MoHUA to promote awareness and use of open data, the statement said.
According to the ministry, the event aims to show the benefits of open data such as increased efficiency, transparency, a spur in innovation and economic growth.
It is divided into two segments -- first, uploading of datasets, visualisation, APIs and data blogs on the Smart Cities Open Data Portal from January 17 to January 20 and second, the celebration of a "Data Day" by all smart cities on January 21.
The "Data Day" will be observed across all the smart cities and will include talks, seminars, hackathons, demonstrations and training on the different data tracks identified by the cities.
The daylong event will see engagement of people from different backgrounds, including from government agencies, private sector enterprises, scientific and academic institutions, businesses, start-ups and the civil society, the government said.