City of Amsterdam opens DataLab

On 15 February, the city councillor of Amsterdam opened a new DataLab. This place is meant to be a meeting point where the municipality of Amsterdam gathers and shares data in collaboration with universities, schools, organisations and companies. For example, by linking data to data related questions and problems, it is possible to choose the best location for garbage containers more efficiently. The number of households in the area are combined with the walking distance towards a garbage assembling point to plan the best locations.

Public transport data available in Vilnius

The residents of Vilnius are now able to access data about the public transportation system of their city. Thereby, it is possible to assess the effectiveness of public transport. The online register contains information about the amount of passengers travelling during rush hours, location of the stops and the different routes the drivers are taking. By comparing the data on planned and executed trips, the register enables assessing the number of planned trips which were on time.

How open data can help electrify India — and the world

In India alone, more than 300 million people (PDF) lack electricity, and even those with access oftentimes receive an unreliable supply. Despite capacity additions in India over the last few years, reliability is still a major issue, with rural areas experiencing about nine hours of power outages every day. Part of the problem is that most of the information out there is on physical grid connections rather than energy quality and reliability issues, such as frequency and duration of power outages.

DigitalOcean to open data centre in India

DigitalOcean, an American cloud infrastructure provider and hosting company, said it plans to open a data center in India this year, with an initial investment of up to USD 5 million. The company is planning to have an initial investment of up to USD 5 million to build its local facility and operation in 2016, the company's CEO and co-founder Ben Uretsky told reporters here. "We are here to help the booming economy in India continue to grow and succeed," he added.