The city of Helsinki in Finland is progressively making more of its data, APIs and software source code publicly available, in tandem with the city’s growing number of open source software developers.
Starting with just one in 2013, Helsinki now employs nine open source software developers. They help municipal departments with tasks that include developing application programming interfaces (APIs), open data projects, and procuring software. The developers are used to the Agile software development approach, and experienced in sharing and reusing of open source solutions.
The increase in the number of developers has reinforced the culture of openly sharing and reusing of ICT assets, says Tero Tikkanen, a user experience (UX) specialist working for Helsinki.
Last week Thursday, Tikkanen presented at one of the Helsinki Loves Developers (Hel<3Dev) events. The city uses these events and its eponymous online platform to organise open dialogue, co-creation and developer cooperation.
“We share our work by using an open licence and we contribute to the community”, Tikkanen said, in a presentation on Helsinki’s open software development and design. One example is the Helsinki Bootstrap Library, a set of HTML and CSS templates for websites and web applications. Examples of projects using this Bootstrap library include the Digital Helsinki eGovernment services portal, and Kerrokantasi (“Let them know how”) an eParticipation portal.
Development principles
When designing and building new eGovernment services, Tikkanen and his colleagues rely on their Digital Services Handbook, which describes key methods, tools and principles. The handbook is based on the design principles formulated by the United Kingdom’s Government Digital Service (GDS) and other, similar references, for example the Digital Playbook used by the city of New York.
Helsinki’s policy on open data, open APIs and open source dates from 2010. One of the first concrete open source projects was the implementation of the KOHA library management solution in all of the libraries in the Helsinki metropolitan area.