Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks to the leaders of the NASSCOM community at 25th Foundation Day of the organisation

The open revolution is finally here.

The tools to map out the revolution were falling into place with the advent of Web 2.0. However, with the social media revolution in play, we have now identified the plumbing of the Internet. Word of mouth is now on fire.

Today, communication at scale has made it possible to ask the big institutions to release information under the garb of greater transparency. We’ve just entered the world of Big Data where the number crunchers wield the power of analytics that drive ‘social’ movements. Thanks to the power of cheap computing, agencies and stakeholders will soon have data to see beyond the obvious. Welcome to the consumer’s world, where even dominant politics is forced to adapt.

How Open Data secretly powers 2015 political activism in NYC

In New York City, data fetishist Ben Wellington started mining NYC public data for citizen information to make it more accessible to the world. With the Open Data Revolution kicking into higher gear, more data points were either identified or being confirmed by advocacy groups. With the information available to any prudent stakeholder at his fingertips, greater accountability was leading to government transparency.

In an earlier world, any government admitting fault lines would have been perceived as a sign of incompetence. Why would any politician want to release such information into the public domain, where his shortcomings were so openly questioned? There was a fear of being called out. That time has since passed. In a world of mature politics, the citizen is an equal stakeholder. By involving him in the decision-making process, you allow him to be a partner to your cause. As a politician then your job is to champion that to happen.

As Ben Wellington explains in his TEDx video, once the data is made available, people start to piece all that information together to define and solve the civic problems. That’s the power of a small number of committed people. They get things done.

In Ben’s case study, tribes committed to common interests found a way to collaborate using the new channels. As per his narrative, data on fire hydrants with the maximum number of parking tickets threw up two hydrants that were responsible for more than $50,000 in parking tickets!

CCTV information revealed that the tickets were billed because the water hydrant was at a short distance away from the curb-extension. What’s more there was a Parking sign planted that prompted the vehicles to park there. Once the news collated by the analysis of this open data hit the Internet via Wellington’s blog, the government agency soon rejigged the parking lines. Voiced on the Internet, action on ground.

This much is expected of global cities like New York, you might quip. But a similar echo resonates in Narendra Modi’s India.

Modi extolls the virtues of e-governance, much like tech-savvy Chandrababu Naidu once did.

Expectedly, a Modi-fied India is swiftly embracing this trend that defined the Open Data movement New York City.

At yesterday’s NASSCOM meet, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi articulated a similar vision for the future of India. A country where the individual is empowered to be a change agent. Modi’s focus on digitisation emphasises exactly the development of such change agents.

In his speech he noted, how e-governance makes life both easier and more economical. With the revolution having already kickstarted in one part of the world, the tide will soon hit India with full force. The Right to Information Act from our yesteryears will soon be left in dust; more such acts have to become the norm. In other words, Open Data is all set for large-scale realisation.

The Fervent Appeal

At the NASSCOM event marking its 25th Foundation Day, Narendra Modi canvassed Industry leaders to help the government to bring about greater transparency using technology. His emphasis on digitisation is hinged on Open Data for transparency. And he is leading the way.

Tune into 26:15 minutes of the talk to hear Modi speak about the potential of Open Data and the data interpretation thereof.

Social Media channels help build one-on-one relationships. Following the demise of a mute UPA government, the Prime Minister’s Office has used the new media channels to cement just such relationships at breakneck speed. Narendra Modi and his government connect with millions of citizens daily through their big SMM outreach. This isn’t lip service. Narendra Modi is probably the only Head of State to have a SoundCloud account, which he uses to spread the word. The State of the Union speech be damned, most citizens would rather have a two-way conversation with India’s powers that-be every single day.

Still with so much data all set to clog our imaginations, greater firepower must be dedicated to the right analyses and cyber security, as the Prime Minister rightly cautioned. That, however, is a new problem that we will naturally evolve to solve.

Open Data is the way of future for India.

Indians will embrace it, appreciate it, and make money on it. All of this will happen as we strive towards realising India’s developmental goals.