Partnering with local government for better data in Boulder

In cities across the globe, local OpenStreetMap communities work diligently to improve and maintain the map of their city freely available to a wider non-technical audience. Simultaneously, local governments publish technical geospatial files to their open data portals, in many cases inaccessible to the average constituent. How can OpenStreetMap and local government work closer together to make open data widely accessible? How could the value of OpenStreetMap for public sector projects be communicated? We’ve been looking at these processes through a neutral lens in previous research for Mapbox Cities. The aim is to explore new avenues of collaboration in order to build the best possible map of the world. We are proposing a panel discussion on data sharing between local government and OpenStreetMap with a focus on Boulder, CO. Bringing together professionals from Boulder City government, the local open data and civic hacking community and local academics in the field, we will dig into technical and communication challenges.