New Team Member: Tori Boeck

Hello all! My name is Victoria (Tori) Boeck, and I’m the newest member of the Ideation & Protoyping Lab here at the Technologiestiftung.

I’ll be helping the team increase its Open Data offerings, often with a policy-based perspective (my studies were in public policy and political science). A major part of this task will be working directly with the Berlin city administration to build a “Servicestelle Open Data” (Service Point Open Data). The goal of this body is to provide expert support to city employees in all matters Open Data, from helping them make sure their data is structured appropriately for reuse to working directly with them to develop apps and other prototypes based on Open Data. As part of this effort, we’ll also be organizing events that give city employees interested in the topic of Open Data a chance to network with each other and share experiences, as well as opportunities for them to meet members of the Open Data community outside of the city administration. Keep an eye out for these events starting in late spring.

I promise not to overdo it with the Gifs

You’ll also see posts from me talking about best practices for Open Data, tips and suggestions for how to analyze and visualize Open Data, and reports on how other cities across the world are using and promoting Open Data.

Before joining the TSB, I previously worked on the project DIGIWHIST, which used open procurement data from across Europe to build Opentender.eu. There, users can access information about what contracts governments are awarding to businesses and conduct their own analyses of this data. The project is a great example of how important and useful Open Data can be for a wide variety of people – citizens, journalists, NGOs, and even for governments themselves.

If there are data you are interested in that are not currently released by the city of Berlin (but conceivably could be), you have questions or ideas about how Open Data works in Berlin, or you otherwise would be interested to chat more about our work: please don’t hesitate to reach out to me or my team members through the communication channel of your choice! We’re always happy to chat.