John Kellas is an Innovation/Community engagement consultant at Bristol Health Partners.

Context
We met John at the Open Data Meetup held January 16 at the Bristol City Council to present their new platform and open up discussion, John expressed his wish to meet with us. He has been active in open data and social good for 7 years.

Interview notes (rough and summarised)

Developed an open data visualisation toolkit. He is involved in social and community projects, open tools and civic good. People care but it’s hard for them to communicate back to local authorities.

John organised hackathons and contributed to the local digital roadmap mandated by sustainable transformation plan (nationally mandated). Working to heal the gap between health, public health and care. Open data and health scares people. It hasn’t got traction.

Information asset register. There are precedents of that being done. Reuse of public sector + local authority transparency.

Interconnectivity between data isn’t made possible where it could be.

Quality of life survey - why isn’t the raw data made openly accessible?

Restricted definition of open data. Can I see it and can I use for non-commercial use.

Grassroots leads and other interesting contacts:
James Gay - Information management advisor
Kev Kirkland - Data unity
Nick Smith - Strategic information and performance management lead

Examples of events:

  • Bristol API - open data challenge events
  • Data dive - Datakind ran a weekend data festival. Participants signed an NDA (non disclosure agreement) and were able to use non-open data to work with. Good example.
  • West of England Nature partnership