MURPHY ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF £40,000 OPEN DATA AND OUTREACH FUND

Finance Minister Conor Murphy has announced the winners of the Department of Finance’s Open Data Innovation and Outreach Fund.

Eight projects from Belfast and Newry will benefit from the £40,000 fund which encourages innovation in the reuse of data on the Open Data NI portal. New for 2021 was an additional category on using data to analyse the societal impact of Covid-19.

Congratulating the winners, Conor Murphy said: “It is great to see how the Open Data Fund has expanded to include a Covid-19 specific category and to see the innovative projects which have come forward in this category. 

“These include a real-time analytics dashboard on the vaccine roll-out, a project to tackle online disinformation about Covid as well as funding a Masters student analysing the use of Belfast Bikes before and during the pandemic.”

Mr Murphy added: “It is encouraging to see the innovation shown by the entrepreneurs, students and businesses which have applied to the Open Data Fund.

“I wish all the winners success in the year ahead and I look forward to seeing the final outcomes from their projects.”

Full details of the successful projects can be found at: www.opendatani.gov.uk/blog/opendatani-innovation-outreach-fund-2021-winners-announced

ENDS