Get inspired by a webinar on the re-use of public sector data for a data-informed public sector.

On Thursday, April 20, the European Commission and the Slovenian Ministry of Digital Transformation hosted a webinar for the country’s civil servants, aiming to promote the use of more and better data in policymaking and public administration. The event specifically highlighted the support available from the European Commission to Member States, including the Big Data Test Infrastructure (BDTI) service.

Data is vital to provide better services to citizens and drive innovation. However, the public sector faces challenges related to data skills and technology which hinder their capabilities. The BDTI aims to alleviate some of these challenges by offering public administrations the use of a set of mainstream open-source tools for data storage, processing and analytics, free of charge. These applications are operated as a cloud service for a maximum of six months, enabling users to experiment with data in a pilot project. After this period, users can take the source code and data with them to continue the work using their own resources. 

After a presentation of the BDTI, the webinar included an interactive workshop where the Slovenian tourism Board and the National Traffic Management Centre presented the objectives and challenges of real-life  government projects in Slovenia. The audience was engaged to collaborate and find solutions together. 

Are you a civil servant facing similar challenges, or are you interested in hosting a similar event for your peers in your country? Apply for a BDTI pilot project here, or reach out to the team via EC-BDTI-PILOTS@ec.europa.eu. 

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