World’s largest investment in open data start-ups announced
The UK’s Open Data Institute (ODI) and the EU have announced funding worth €14.4m to encourage open data innovation.
The pledge builds upon the successful training business and research functions of the UK’s ODI and is the largest direct investment in open data startups in the world. Funding will be directed towards a Europe-wide incubator programme, a Europe-wide web data research network and a new academy to train data scientists.
Announcing the new investments, Gavin Starks, chief executive at the ODI said: “This is a decisive investment by the EU to create open data skills, build capabilities and provide fuel for open data start-ups across Europe. It combines three key drivers for open adoption: financing start-ups, deepening our research and evidence, and training the next generation of data scientists, to exploit emerging open data ecosystems.”
The EU has committed €7.8m to realise a 30-month incubator programme for open data entrepreneurs across Europe, via Horizon 2020. The Open Data Incubator for Europe (ODInE), which launch in Spring 2015 and will be modelled on the ODI’s highly successful Startup Programme.
The ODI, in conjunction with five other partners, has also successfully secured funding of €3.7m to create a network of 15 early-stage researchers across Europe. The project, named WDAqua (Web Data and Question Answering), is part of the EU’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action Innovative Training Networks, and researchers will focus on answering different aspects of the question, “how can we answer complex questions with web data?”. The funding will be issued over four years and will enable each partner to create two to three PhD positions.
The third funded project will see the creation of a new European Data Science Academy (EDSA). EDSA will train a generation of data scientists with the skills and detailed knowledge to enable European businesses to flourish in the data age. Horizon 2020 will invest a total of €2.9m in the project and the EDSA will use a combination of the latest data analysis and eLearning technologies to produce a European-wide dashboard for analysing and understanding industrial data, science skill requirements. This will consequently develop and deliver open educational materials to meet the demand.
