Open Data for Economic Growth in Russia
The report reviews the latest data about companies using open data, and highlights four companies which did not exist ten years ago, which are driven by open data, and which are each now valued at around $1 billion or more. It discusses the five archetypical types of businesses using Open Data, and cites concrete examples of each, and discusses the types of data which are proving most likely to lead to widespread business adoption and innovation. One of the examples of successful open data companies is Zillow with a market capitalization of over $3 billion, provides a home and real estate on-line marketplace. Climate Corp, acquired for $930 million by Monsanto in October 2013, uses 60 years of detailed crop yield data, weather observations from one million locations in the United States and 14 terabytes of soil quality data - all free from the US Government, to provide applications that help farmers improve their profits by making better informed operating and financing decisions. The paper suggests that since Open Data is relatively new in Russia it is unsurprising that there is less evidence of actual economic returns so far. Nevertheless rapid progress has been made, with the successful publication of over 500 datasets as promised by July 2013. Subsequently the first version of the Russian Open Data portal data.gov.ru has been launched, and already contains close to 1300 datasets. In addition to the release of data from Ministries of the Russian Federation there have been creditable Open Data initiatives in several regions, with 8 regional open data portals, and in major cities such as Moscow and St Petersburg. There is no fundamental reason why Russia should not be able to exploit the economic advantages of open data for itself, and indeed why Russia should not be a global leader in the exploitation of Open Data elsewhere in the region and globally. In addition to the available data and well-advanced digitization of the government, Russia has active venture capital sector with both state and private sources of capital, high-speed broadband and mobile internet infrastructure and necessary technical skills. The report makes some recommendations for policies and actions which the Government of the Russian Federation could take to maximize the economic growth possible from their data, and suggests that the Government should see itself not only as a Supplier of open data but also as a leader, catalyst and user of it.