The value of an idea lies in the using of it.
Thomas A. Edison, American Inventor
DatApocalypse aims to sensitize the general public to open data in a fun and interactive way.
What if Australians were using open data more often? Open data can be useful to anyone. Journalists would build stronger stories, primary schools students would be more innovative in their geography project and young couples would find their ideal house more easily.
Open data has been available for a long time but a large part of the public is not aware of the immense resources they can provide for daily needs but also for… Apocalyptic scenarios.
By immersing the users in a disaster scenario, DatApocalypse shows what information open data can provide and where they can find them.
From our customer’s perspective – the government –, there is a growing demand for educating the public to resources and give them the opportunity to become creative and proactive citizens. In an acclaimed article, The Wired introduced what would later be known as a Transforming Citizen-Government Interaction. Aside from its openness, open data need to attract everyone and democratize knowledge – a key part of the job that still has to be done. In our estimations, only 0.0023% of Australians actually use Open Data. A better access and understanding of these data for the 99,9977% is an important part of the story when constructing a democracy.
Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government – Barak Obama, 2008.
From a users’ perspective – youngers, tourists or any person who wants to learn more about their city --, DatApocalypse gives them a fun opportunity to rediscover the area where they live, to have a better understanding of what open data really is and what resources could save them in catastrophic events.
On a technical aspect, DatApocalypse is a simple yet relevant tool to go beyond data. It can easily be improved and become more precise with additional datasets and scenarios.
The survivors are never out of new techniques to improve their survival index. Expansions can easily be implemented: create new scenarios, improve the data model with additional variables, apply machine learning to confirm our hypothesis and add social sharing.
Our project can also be used to improve emergency responses by educating the population about the risks of a catastrophe event.
