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Kaunas Dialogue Platform Webinars on Open Data

Živilė Šimkutė, Žaneta Stasiškienė, Gabrielė Čepeliauskaitė, Leon Leuser, Benno Keppner

Suggested Citation

Živilė Šimkutė, Žaneta Stasiskienė and Gabrielė Čepeliauskaitė; 2020: Kaunas Dialogue

Platform. Webinars on Open Data. Kaunas: Kaunas University of Technology.

Imprint

Publisher: adelphi research gemeinnützige GmbH

Alt-Moabit 91

10559 Berlin

+49 (030) 8900068-0

[email protected]

www.adelphi.de

Authors: Živilė Šimkutė, Žaneta Stasiškienė, Gabrielė Čepeliauskaitė (Kaunas

University of Technology)

Leon Leuser, Benno Keppner (adelphi)

Photo credits: Title: shutterstock.com

Status: July 2020

© 2020 adelphi

Kaunas Dialogue Platform Webinars on Open Data

Živilė Šimkutė, Žaneta Stasiškienė, Gabrielė Čepeliauskaitė

TREA REA Kaunas University adelphi I

Contents

List of Figures II

Open Data for Smart Cities and Climate Mitigation Agenda 3

1 Between Public and Private 5

1.1 Lithuanian experience: transport and energy sectors 6

1.2 Baltic experience: Platforms/systems that help link public and private sectors and

generate open data 7

1.3 Discussion 8

1.4 Conclusions 9

2 Use of Open Data to Create Climate Friendly Innovations 11

2.1 Mobility 11

2.2 Energy 11

2.3 Waste 12

2.4 Discussion 13

2.5 Conclusions 14

3 Transition Towards Openness 15

3.1 National level initiatives 15

3.2 Local level initiatives 16

3.3 Discussion 16

3.4 Conclusions 17

References 18

II adelphi TREA REA Kaunas University

List of Figures

Figure 1. Data-driven smart sustainable city (Bibri, 2019) 5

Figure 2. Partnerships and connections (Norkūnas, 2020)

Figure 3 Smart metering system in Lithuania (Kulikian, 2020) 12

Figure 4. NutriLoop circular economy based system (Soone, 2020) 12

Figure 5. Objective for CPTRL detail phase (Baltrušaitis, 2020) 15

adelphi TREA REA Kaunas University 003

Open Data for Smart Cities and Climate Mitigation

Agenda

SESSION I: Wednesday, June 10th, Zoom teleconference

Between public and private

Time Topic Presenter(s)

14.00 – 14.03

Opening Frank Graage (Steinbeis)

14.03 – 14.05

Introduction to Kaunas Dialogue

Živilė Šimkutė (KUT)

14.05 – 14.15

Open data - myths Gabrielė Čepeliauskaitė (KUT)

14.15 – 14.30

Lithuanian experience: Lithuanian Transport

Innovation Center

Julius Norkūnas (TIC)

14.30 – 14.45

Innovating public sector - Ignitis Group

example

Emilija Kerpaitė (Ignitis Group)

14.45 – 15.00

SMART ENERGY Digital Innovation HUB Vidmantas Janulevičius

(DIH)

15.00 – 15.15

Baltic experience: Platforms/systems that

help link public and private sectors and

generate open data

Leon Leuser (adelphi,

Germany)

Marek Muiste (Tartu

Regional Energy Agency,

Estonia)

Kristaps Kaugurs (Riga

Energy Agency, Latvia)

15.15 – 16.00

Panel discussion

16.00 Closing

SESSION II: Friday, June 12th, Zoom teleconference

Use of open data to create climate friendly innovations


14.00 – 14.15 Opening: Introduction to a second Kaunas

Dialogue

Franc Graage (Steinbeis)

Živilė Šimkutė (KUT)

004 TREA REA Kaunas University adelphi

14.15 – 14.30 Public MaaS: Making Sustainable Mobility a City-

Wide Habit

Justas Petronis (Trafi)

14.30 – 14.45 Smart meters roll-out in Lithuania Janina Kulikian (ESO)

14.45 – 15.00 Food waste regulations - Start-up view Marie Soone (NutriLoop)

15.00 – 15.15 Remote Prosumers or Community solar as new

booking.com

Darius Montvila (Ignitis

Group)

15.15 – 16.00 Panel discussion

16.00 Closing

SESSION III: Wednesday, June 17th, Zoom teleconference

Transition Towards Openness


14.00 – 14.15 Opening: Introduction to a second Kaunas

Dialogue

Franc Graage (Steinbeis)

Dr. Žaneta Stasiškienė (KUT)

14.15 – 14.30 Creating a centralized, standardized data platform

- data.gov.lt

Gintautas Mežaitis

(data.gov.lt)

14.30 – 14.45 Mobility point in VEF innovation district & open

data

Lasma Ivaska (VEFRESH)

14.45 – 15.00 Sustainability compass of the Comprehensive plan

of the Republic of Lithuania

Donatas Baltrušaitis (...)

15.00 – 15.15 Intelligent energy lab - we are not smart city - we

are more

Eglė Radvilė (Vilnius city

municipality)

15.15 – 16.00 Panel discussion

16.00 Closing


1 Between Public and Private

Franc Graage, conference moderator, opened the first Kaunas Virtual Baltic Smart City

Dialogue, which was organised by Kaunas University of Technology. One of the themes

dialogue focused on was mediation activities that various public or private agencies undertake

to help generate public data or open public infrastructure and use it to create climate friendly

innovations or encourage effective and sustainable use of resources.

The brief overview to the webinar series and the agenda of the first dialogue were introduced

by Živilė Šimkutė, the representative of KUT. Presenter emphasised on the relevance of

the use of open-data and the collaboration between private and public sectors in creating

innovative solutions in cities.

Gabrielė Čepeliauskaitė (KUT) provided a scientific literature review that focused on the

definition of open data, concept of data-driven smart city and the myths surrounding the topic.

According to the presenter, open data is defined in various ways characterising the main

aspects such as provision by public and private organizations, commercial and non-

commercial use without restriction, public funding, publication in “machine-readable” format

(Barns,2016; Vetrò et al., 2016; Sadiq, & Indulska, 2017). Data-driven smart sustainable city

requires a combination of instruments, processes, human resources, skills and systems to

make real-time knowledge based decisions and create climate-friendly solutions in transport,

energy and waste (see Figure 1). However, the necessity to understand the benefits and the

process of open data still remain.

Figure 1. Data-driven smart sustainable city (Bibri, 2019)

The challenges of open data were explained by five main myths (Jansen et al., 2012). Major

open-data related myths are: “the publicizing of data will automatically yield benefits”, “all

information should be unrestrictedly publicized”, “it is a matter of simply publishing public data”,

“everyone can make use of open data”. Presenter noted that publicizing easy-to-use data

needs infrastructure and knowledge to make it valuable. She also mentioned that not all types

of data can and needs to be published. It highly depends on the legislative environment, the

resources needed and potential risks. The matter of publishing open data requires an open-

data policy, user friendly conditions and environment to stimulate open data use. As well as

the preparation, the use of open data also needs specific skills and knowledge. However, the

presenter concluded that openness does not always result in better, more democratic and

rational decisions.


1.1 Lithuanian experience: transport and energy sectors

Julius Norkūnas, the CEO of Mobility Innovation Center, gave the first presentation in the

webinar about the development of Lithuanian Transport Innovation Center (TIC). The center

was established in 2019 by three Lithuanian public companies: Lithuanian Railways,

Lithuanian Post and Road Maintenance. It works as a platform for cooperation. The center has

five core functions: Problem solving (identification of sector challenges and search for

solutions), Innovation transfer (Passing the solutions found to the transport and

communications sector companies, Sandbox (access to infrastructure for testing and

development of technologies), Sector promotion (representation of the transport and

communications sector during events, their organization, accumulation of information and

statistics on the sector) and Investment proposals (recommendations to the center’s

stakeholders to invest in the solutions found). Public and private companies use this platform

to attract innovations and communicate with the transport sector in Lithuania. TIC helps

stakeholders identify key challenges in the transport sector, help them understand the

problems better and act as a bridge between stakeholders and the private sector (work with

these questions. While preparing the list of challenges different stakeholders faced, TIC

recognized a lot of commonalities therefore the goal is to find solutions that. To address

common problems in the transport sector and bring innovation to them TIC organizes

hackathons, special dedicated projects (e.g. accessibility of railways to people with disabilities)

where companies can apply with their solutions. One of the most important programs of TIC

is “the sandbox”. TIC encourage collaboration between SME and Startups and big transport

organizations that provide a testing environment (eg. railway track, road and etc.) while TIC

provides mentorship and access to an expert network, helps attract finance (see Figure 2).

The ambition of TIC is to become a hub where partnerships and connections could be created

between Universities, Venture Capital, Startups, Corporations, other networks and hubs,

Associations, Corporate ventures, accelerators / incubators and across Europe. Center

already has hundreds of connections to help SME’s and Startups accelerate their product

development. At the end of the presentation, Juliu Norkūnas emphasized on the key role of

public procurement in innovation development. The center is working on an innovation

procurement map, advising the companies, which methodology to choose to develop

innovations: pre-commercial

procurement, public procurement for

innovation, public procurement.

Innovation expert in Ignitis Group

Emilija Kerpaitė presented current

innovations and the status of developing

open data in Lithuanian energy sector.

Ignitis Group is a state-owned energy

company, which is one of the largest

energy groups in the Baltic region. Emilija

Kerpaitė outlined different programs

internally or externally implemented by

Ignitis Group that are directed at finding

innovative solutions for the energy sector.

Open innovations in Ignitis Group are

based on open funding, open culture,

open data and infrastructure, open

partnerships. Opened innovation

programs were established to attract

Figure 2. Partnerships and

connections (Norkūnas, 2020)


innovative ideas and pilot them internally. In the presentation Emilija Kerpaitė highlighted the

importance of open data for creating smart solutions. She gave the example of the Sandbox

(open data and open infrastructure), which was established reacting to the need from other

companies to work on innovative solutions. Emilija marked that the challenges regarding open

data are mainly related to quality of open data generation, national security threats, confidence

(commercial secrets) and personal data protection (GDPR). The presentation was concluded

by providing the results of a two-year experience of open innovation programmes, where 2000

innovative ideas were presented and the greatest example is solar parks, the innovation, which

serves solar energy for customers by buying or renting solar panels.

The last presentation of the first webinar was given by Vidmantas Janulevičius from Digital

Innovation Hub (DIH). The DIH is closely related to Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists,

a major association and lobby group in Lithuania, which represents the interests of large

industrialists and employers. Smart Energy DIH is a non-profit organisation which develops

the smart energy innovation ecosystem based in Vilnius (Lithuania). The Digital Innovation

Hub brings together major research, business and public stakeholders in Lithuania for the

common development and implementation of digital transformations in renewable energy,

greenhouse gas reduction, eco-design, recycling, environmental protection, circular business

model development and associated sectors that meet European citizens’ needs.

1.2 Baltic experience: Platforms/systems that help link public and

private sectors and generate open data

Short insights about Baltic states' experience and systems that link public and private sectors

for open data generation in Latvia, Estonia and Germany were presented in the second section

of the webinar.

The state of data openness in Riga and Latvia was presented by urban and regional planner

Kristaps Kaugurs, the representative or Riga municipality. In his talk Kristaps touched on

the regulation of open-data, presented the current status of open-data movement, pointed out

the existing challenges and barriers for more open data and spoke on few initiatives attempting

to bring data out in the open. While the general open-data legislation on the national level is

well implemented it still has many shortcomings that do not motivate state and municipal

institutions to open their data unless it is specifically required by law. Although Latvia ranks

well above EU average in open data maturity index (EU Open Data Report), some

fundamental barriers to the implementation of open-data in national and municipal institution

persist, such as 1) public sector bodies are often commercializing the data they provide, it

being a significant source for their funding; (2) data anonymization and structuration require

extra funds and staff that is not always available to the institutions; (3) public and semi-public

institutions remain reluctant to share information. Speaker accented the importance to raise

the awareness of benefits of open data, indicated points where municipal and national

regulation needs to be fixed to stimulate the process and shared a few open data initiatives

that, despite the obstacles, pioneer the field. The examples include NGO based public IoT

test-beds and open-data initiatives as well as municipality that has started to tinker with the

idea to employ a data analyst in their permanent staff.

Estonian experience of smart city development was presented by the Project partner Marek

Muiste, the representative from Tartu Region Energy Agency. He emphasized two specific

questions: digital democracy and data isolation. To begin with, explained Estonian digital

parliamentary system, which is a background for different registrations, municipal procedures

from national to international elections. Mobile and secure identification platforms create

foundation for user-centered smart city applications. Second important question – the question

of isolated data. The problem, he noted, is the isolation of collected data by specific institutions,


which creates difficulties of access and use. For example, consumer metering data and

authorization is a tool used for accessing users consumption data, which is digital in Estonia.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to use the platform, especially for communities and municipalities

evaluating the consumption of governmental units. Concerning the issues, Estonian

parliament struggled to generate a specific platform (Estonia Open Data Portal) to open

government datasets on national level, which was supported by Open Knowledge Estonia

NGO. The presentation was finalized by providing an example from local level – Tartu City

Portal. Municipality generates and opens data about mobility and street lighting, at the same

time municipality provides the opportunity for citizens to upload individually generated data.

The final presentation about Intermediaries and data Platforms in Germany was given by Leon

Leuser (Adelphi), a representative of the Environmental and Sustainability policy group. The

presenter noted that many IT-service providers in Germany are corporations under public law

and support the development and integration of new IT - and Smart City solutions in

municipalities. For example, Ekom21 is one of the biggest IT service providers for more than

500 municipalities in the state of Hasse. Another important example – Association of municipal

IT service providers Vitako combining 53 companies, which provide their services for more

than 10 000 municipalities. He highlighted a private sector active participation for open data

development by mentioning [ui!] – the urban institute, which supports cities in Germany, the

EU and worldwide with the integration of smart solutions. The important action in expanding

open data opportunities in Germany was the establishment of the standard for data platforms,

initiated by [ui!] and developed together with various stakeholders of IT companies (Microsoft,

SAP), energy companies, automotive companies (BMW), science institutions and some front

runner cities such as Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne and Munich. Leon Leuser described the

potential of a new German Industry Standard (DIN SPEC 91357) for Reference Architecture

Model Open Urban Platform in order to manage, control, and work with the data gathered by

different services in the city. OUP brings together all data and services and enables efficient

exchange and use of data. The presentation was finalized by giving a number of examples of

current development in data sets establishment in Germany on local (Hamburg, Munich, Bonn,

Bremen, Frankfurt, Cologne), especially Berlin Open data portal with more than 2242 data

sets, used for more than 60 applications such as mapping lakes, noise, tree care in public

spaces, risk management etc., and national level (Online Access Act (2017) and Gov.data.de

(a platform of the German Government that provides open data gathered by municipalities,

state and the federal state and already contains 6370 data sets of energy, 15 000 data sets

of environment.

1.3 Discussion

How do you approach the public sector and what could you suggest to municipalities

and national agencies how to speed-up open innovation using public open data.

Julius Norkūnas explained that the process of open-innovation takes patience and time and it

needs approval from top management of companies. Moreover, good communication is

needed between different departments. Some infrastructure changes are also necessary.

Companies need to start by doing their “homework” to better understand what they have, how

it works. The hardest thing regarding change is the change of mindset but positive change is

visible already.

Emilija Kerpaitė explained that research within the company is very important before data is

shared. It is a huge challenge but once companies start, it becomes easier.


Vidmantas Janulevičius explained that Open data could be used to do very precise prognosis.

The biggest challenge is to collect usable data and use it to make informed decisions about

provision of clean energy. Moreover, not all of the EU is fully digitalized and this limits progress.

Changes in policies are needed to create certain standards and policy recommendations to

member states.

How to attract bigger companies and smaller municipalities to participate in the

“Sandbox platforms”?

Julius Norkūnas explained that Lithuanian Transport innovation center is already open to

bigger companies but they usually have their own labs and access to testing environments.

For startups and SMEs it's more difficult, therefore they created this platform to make the

bridge between businesses and the public sector.

Emilija Kerpaitė conquered that Ignites Group innovation sandbox is also open to bigger

companies.

What are the biggest challenges in the public sector to implement open-data policies?

Gabrielė Čepeliauskaitė explained that the public sector is still not well informed why open-

data policies might be beneficial. Also, the public sector needs help from experts.

How open is the private sector?

Vidmantas Janulevičius explained that general understanding about openness is very

important: what is it, how to use it, why it is useful? When the private sector understands it,

change can happen faster. Telecommunication companies are key drivers of change when

using open-data.

What are the success stories of active public engagement?

Julius Norkunas explained the pilot case between postal services and Lithuanian startup

ZiTiCiti is one of their success stories. It was not easy to set it up: identify challenges and find

the right. Success, according to Julius Norkūnas, really depends on the agility of the company

(whether public or private), to act to test, to do pilots and be not afraid to fail. It is not necessary

to change the whole system, find specific aspects that could be improved in a fast way.

How Ignitis Group use artificial intelligence (AI)?

According to Emilija Kerpaite, there was one pilot to detect overhead line fault indication with

drones, it proved successful but it was decided that it was too expensive. Company is now

working with another startup regarding this issue.

Example of open-data usage from Sandbox projects.

Emilija Kerpaite explained that around 50% of sandbox box applications are rejected either

because the company does not have data needed or it cannot make it public. GDPR is a huge

challenge because all consumption data is owned by the consumer. If a consumer wants the

company to use data, the company needs permission but the company cannot approach the

consumer. All datasets are reviewed by different experts: security, law, GDPR and other

specialists. Either way the attitude is to ensure.

1.4 Conclusions

1. There is still a lack of awareness of what open-data policy is, what open-data is and what

kind of benefits it could bring to the organization and the city.


2. Collaboration between public and private stakeholders is essential to generate valid and

relevant, high quality datasets.

3. Innovation in climate friendly solutions could be accelerated by creating a testing ground for

startups and SME’s.

4. Companies and organizations need to be agile in testing new ideas. It is not always

necessary to change the whole infrastructure which takes a lot of time. It is important to use

available resources.

5. Technical improvements need to be made to the state portals, and clear legislation is

needed to balance data openness and privacy.

6. GDPR is a challenge when deciding what kind of datasets to open up but it should not

prevent organizations to stop sharing data.


2 Use of Open Data to Create Climate Friendly

Innovations

Second webinar focused on the use of open data to create climate friendly innovations. Private

companies and public agencies shared their stories on how open data or openness of the

public sector was used to create / develop innovations. Mobility, energy and waste

management were the main topics, where the conditions and collaboration of data openness

were discussed.

2.1 Mobility

The first presentation of the second webinar was by a product marketing manager in Trafi

Justas Petronis focused on mobility issues in cities and innovative solutions. Trafi is a

software company, providing services with mobility service platforms to which cities could

launch and integrate their own mobility solutions. The presentation focused attention to

unsustainable cities’ tendencies such as increasing rate of carbon emissions, car ownership

and energy consumption and at the same time decreasing affordability and accessibility to

alternatives of transport. Therefore, he stressed the need to solve actual problems and project

the outcomes in an innovative way. While the cities globally are facing the same problems with

differing intensity, a list of tactics need to be balanced out to find systematic solutions for some

issues. Innovations can play an important role to solve the problems mentioned above as well

as to increase mobility coverage and repurpose urban infrastructure, create shared

environments, improve access to the mobility network, promote ecologically sustainable

transport options, and make mobility. Real time movement analytics are required for cities to

check regular solutions and access points for urban mobility. Solution is between citizens,

private mobility providers and public transport authorities. The presenter gave the example of

Maas API – a data management and integration hub, which captures and enhances mobility

data. From the data perspective, it provides a comprehensive analytics dashboard, captures

intensity of service growth and consumption patterns, implements data informed decisions.

The presentation was summed up by sharing lessons learned that city / public transport

authority spins off a team, aligned objectives, KPIs and designed shared road maps are

needed, focus on residents and deep level integrations.

2.2 Energy

The integration of smart meters in Lithuania were presented by a smart metering programme

manager in Lithuanian Energy distribution operator (ESO) Janina Kulikian. Currently

ESO is implementing two projects – smart meters, deployment and smart meters’ hub to

increase energy efficiency and economic benefits for users. She gave the example of The Pilot

of smart metering, organized in 2016 – 2017. Results of the pilot concluded that consumers

use less energy when a smart meter is installed. Janina Kulikian also pointed out that public

procurement is one of the biggest challenges for the public sector as it takes a lot of time. The

benefits of smart meters related to open data and climate-friendly cities, which were

distinguished by Janina Kulikian, were the analysis of consumption data (every 15 min.), which

helps to analyze consumption – changes in consumption and behaviour. Based on such data

new tariffs and new plans based on consumption data analysis and energy saving could be

created. Network digitalization is also important for the use of data, when decisions are made


based on data regarding asset management and investment. She gave the example of Data

hub – centralized information exchange platform for market participants, where the data is

collected, stored safely provided to some institutions and suppliers (see Figure 3). A level

playing field for all suppliers, standardized data exchange and registration processes, low

batteries to enter the market are one of the advantages of the Hub.

Figure 3 Smart metering system in Lithuania (Kulikian, 2020)

Darius Montvila, the CEO of Ignitis Group, continued the session with sharing experience

on solar parks innovation establishment in Lithuania. A solar park is useful innovation, which

is based on renewable energy generation, nature conservation and energy independence. He

highlighted the point of collaboration and cooperation with the national government to help end

necessary changes in legislation in the energy sector in order to start the innovation.

2.3 Waste

The final presentation of the second webinar was about bio waste collection and recycling

regulations. Case was presented by Marie Soone, a representative of NutriLoop startup.

The startup provides innovative solutions for insufficient circulation of nutrients, ineffective bio

waste recycling solutions and destructive agriculture (see Figure 4).

According to the experience of the startup, from a positive point of view, waste management

is highly regulated, it has security and safety concerns. However, the regulations make it

difficult to bring innovations to this sector. At the national level waste collection permissions

and support for outside composting are available, while on municipal level onsite composting

for companies is not allowed and there are no opportunities to establish green innovations.

She stressed the public procurement laws, which prioritise a cheapest option, without posing

attention to the environment. Another barrier is biomass recycling license for two options –

biogas or classical composting. According to these obstacles, the list of options should be

expanded. The advantages for the beginners in Estonia are for the startups, which produce

less than 5 tons of bio-waste per year to operate without license.

Figure 4. NutriLoop circular economy based system (Soone, 2020)


2.4 Discussion

Does any of the data generated while implementing your projects is publically

accessible or accessible with some kind of restrictions?

Darius Montvila provided the current situation from Ignitis Group, where a part of the data is

accessible (energy generation), but consumption data is restricted due to privacy restrictions.

Justas Petronis noted that whether data is open or not depends on the owner of collected

data. For example, data in Germany is collected throughout the day and at the end of the day

it is shared in public, without interacting privacy restrictions.

Marie Soone pointed out that a number of data is available related to waste collection in

Estonia. A part of data is opened, especially related to the environment, another part is only

for clients.

What is the ecological effect of the innovation?

Justas Petronis noted economic reasons and issues of accessing public transport and using

a private car according to a living place (regions), and according to some threats for health.

The main aspect of the innovation was not directly related to ecological effect, but the factors

determining it – raise of the citizens’ motivation to use environmentally-friendly transport.

Public transport is one of the most effective ways for a city to be green.

Darius Montvila stressed that it depends on platform or technology. The point that a company

can motivate consumers is the understanding that they are more environmentally friendly. The

main effect of the innovation – CO2 reduction from private houses in a city.

Janina Kulikian noted that using smart meters data people can change behaviour and become

more energy efficient.


Marie Sooner concluded that CO2 in bio waste and waste management can account for a

huge number, therefore, a local food circle for food security on a local level is environmentally-

friendly solution.

What are the biggest challenges?

Justas Petronis points out that it is necessary to have authorities' support and a strong idea

for its implementation.

Darius Montvila agreed to the previous thoughts that active help, cooperation, and

communication with the government are necessary. Government usually has no know-how to

solve the problems.

Janina Kulikian gave some insights about regulations and public procurement, which is a

difficult stage, takes a lot of time, resources and as a result the outcomes are unknown.

Marie Soone highlighted the lack of municipality support and innovative image of the company.

What comes first – DATA or business idea?

Darius Montvila pointed out the importance of business is first. Availability of data is not a

stopper, the value of a business idea is the most important. Janina Kulikia and Marie Sooner

also supported this idea. Justas Petronis has a different opinion – data first.

2.5 Conclusions

1. Regulation free Test-bed - Legislations is an issue. Businesses need a test-bed to try and

later use the results to challenge certain regulations.

2. Cities do not need quick-fixes. Deep understanding of the problem and what caused it is

essential.

3. Cities need systemic solutions: financial incentives, infrastructure, good urban planning, co-

creation and interdisciplinary - institutional cooperation.

4. New technological solutions need to be calibrated with city infrastructure and meet its vision.

Otherwise it might be counterproductive.

5. Creators of Climate cautions innovations are usually more open to collaboration and data

sharing. This should be celebrated and encouraged.

6. There is no golden rule where to start therefore a path towards climate friendly innovations

needs to be a push and pull process: encourage change and offer help how to do it. It is not

wise to leave the public sector alone.


3 Transition Towards Openness

The third and final Webinar of Kaunas Dialogue invited the participants to look at the

challenges, tendencies, and opportunities of open data initiatives from the public sector

perspective and discuss requirements.

3.1 National level initiatives

The first presentation of the final session about centralized, standardized data platform

creation in Lithuania was presented by Gintautas Mežetis, the head of the Information

society development committee of the Republic of Lithuania. He defined open data as the

data for computers, provided in machine-readable format, open data at a certain level, to

achieve transparency, secondary use. Structured data – easy to find clear context, which helps

to create. Data portal (open.gov.lt) is useful for collaboration between different EU states and

sharing it on an international level. Open data is one of the building blocks in the digital

ecosystem. The main challenges that the public sector face are: understanding the reason for

opening and data literacy. On a local level – legislation is the limit. The understanding of open

data definition and value is necessary among all institutions. However, there are not enough

initiatives to open data from public and private sectors.

Another presentation about Sustainability compass of the Comprehensive plan of the Republic

of Lithuania was presented by urbanist Donatas Baltrušaitis. The Spatial Compass of the

National comprehensive plan of Lithuania is the instrument not only to gather data, but to also

see how to use it for certain goals. The main aim is to take data, which indicates the existing

potential and problems of the natural and urban environment. Data is gathered for these

sections, which helps to achieve specific national economic, social and environmental goals.

He summed up that knowledge, real-time data and livability are necessary in data opening

(see Figure 5). To indicate some elements properly the data should be on a territorial grid, not

only on a city level.

Figure 5. Objective for CPTRL detail phase (Baltrušaitis, 2020)


3.2 Local level initiatives

Eglė Radvilė, adviser on Innovation Issues in Vilnius City Municipality, shared Vilnius

city experience in data opening and digitalization by creating Intelligent energy lab. Vilnius City

Municipality lays down the vision, which operates on six principles: inclusive well-being,

solutions for social problems and quality of life, not self-directed technology. At the same time,

it follows the initiative of the intelligent community as well, which is based on management

excellence, overall knowledge, innovation, digital equality, intelligence excellence and

advocacy first. Intelligent Energy Lab set the goal to create an open platform where intelligent

ideas for the energy sector in Vilnius could be generated and implemented (see Figure 6). It

contains open platforms for innovative solutions in efficient energy use, sustainability, and the

modern city energy sector. Each project should address Green Deal targets. Moreover, Vilnius

City Municipality established a Board of Innovation, where the representatives from companies

interested in creating and maintaining sustainable and intelligent energy are involved. The

board gives recommendations for intelligent energy projects and seeks to offer an audible

platform. The presentation was finalized by indicating the important aspects for opening data

based on Vilnius city experience – the main input into the sandbox for ideas, prototypes and

experiments and collaboration between institutions, partners and others.

Lasma Ivaska, innovation lead and project manager at Vefresh presented “Riga mobility

point” which is the project of Riga Energy Agency. Riga mobility point promotes sustainable

transportation by connecting the public transport system with shared transport modes and

cycling network thus offering convenient access to micromobility and public transport options.

Compared to other mobility points in Europe, the solution developed in Riga is unique in terms

of target audience, as it has taken into consideration not only the mobility needs of citizens,

but also the interest of scientists and entrepreneurs involved in data collecting, opening up

and promoting innovative data solutions. Solution fosters testing and deployment of data-

based mobility innovations in Latvia – a newly designed pedestrian and bicycle counter has

been installed at the mobility point, answering the need for long-term data processing on the

intensity of pedestrian and bicycle traffic in Riga. Also, a testbed station for smart city solutions

has been set up at the mobility point for piloting the Internet of Things (IoT), machine vision

and other solutions, as well as for collecting various open data of the city. Thus, the Riga

mobility point solution provides easy-to-access, open public infrastructure for testing

innovations: infrastructure, utility poles for sensors and other solutions. The requirement for

the users is to open all the gathered data in machine readable format. Testbed station ensures

minimal administrative burden for companies and innovators and acts as a replacement open-

data repository until the time when national data portal data.gov.lv or a municipal analogue

will be ready to accept this data. Currently data repository data.gov.lv collects only state and

municipal data and due to regulation and technical limitations is unable to serve non-public

bodies. At the end of the presentation Lasma Ivaska gave a remark that to make data usable,

even if it is opened, the collaboration between private and public sector should be ensured.

3.3 Discussion

What are the limits of running initiatives?

Kristaps Kaugurs stressed that companies and institutions are continuing with the research

regardless of state or municipal reluctance. Government needs the private sector to work with

open data both for commercial purposes and improved governance processes, such as data


driven decision making process. Moreover, he highlighted the importance of data collection

and preparation before opening it for all sorts of creative applications.

Lasma Ivaska pointed out that it would help if public infrastructure created by the public sector

could be used fully by everyone for testing and data gathering.

What is Lithuanian experience?

Živilė Šimkutė explained the complex process of how data collected on the local level is

uploaded into national databases and what obstacles specialists face along the way. There is

a big problem of data validity. This also highlights the problem of data literacy. It is already

important that this knowledge will be crucial for future professionals in all sectors.

Gintautas Mežetis agrees with the previous idea that the government still thinks in analogue

documents. The tools are clear, but the agreement of using them is missing.

How can these initiatives (or other) increase climate mitigation?

Lasma Ivaska highlighted CO2 emissions detection for understanding the situation, to follow

the information in specific locations. Only one percent of the data that is open is real-time and

machine readable. Having such data would increase progress.

Kristaps Kaugurs pointed out the need for public infrastructure to support data collection

making it available openly. He also indicated that municipalities react to changes slowly,

therefore it is by design difficult for them to pioneer the open data initiatives.

Gintautas Mežetis noted that process design is necessary: data structure + tools + users.

What are the changes needed, priorities?

Lasma Ivaska said that municipalities should understand the value of real time data.

Živilė Šimkutė highlighted the importance of starting with the problematic areas: transport,

energy, waste management. Prioritizing the data and taking climate emergency into account.

Kristaps Kaugurs pointed out the need to properly finance opening the data and suggested

sharing success stories among the institutions.

Gintautas Mežetis summed up that a data sandbox is needed to accelerate innovative and

valuable solutions.

3.4 Conclusions

1. Awareness raising about open data and the real value in the public sector is necessary.

2. Public-private cooperation is required to open the data in the public sector.

3. Local governments need capacity building in data literacy and need to attract specialists

who could initiate and implement open data projects.

4. Real-time, machine readable data, infrastructure and knowledge could help to create

climate friendly innovations.

5. Not all data needs to be opened here and now. As this needs preparation, priority could be

given to data that would help create technologies aimed at increasing climate resilience.


References

Barns, S. (2016). Mine your data: Open data, digital strategies and entrepreneurial

governance by code. Urban Geography, 37(4), 554-571.

Goldstein, S. M., Johnston, R., Duffy, J., & Rao, J. (2002). The service concept: the missing

link in service design research? Journal of Operations management, 20(2), 121-134.

Sadiq, S., & Indulska, M. (2017). Open data: Quality over quantity. International Journal of

Information Management, 37(3), 150-154.

Vetrò, A., Canova, L., Torchiano, M., Minotas, C. O., Iemma, R., & Morando, F. (2016).

Open data quality measurement framework: Definition and application to Open Government

Data. Government Information Quarterly, 33(2), 325-337.

Bibri, S.E. The anatomy of the data-driven smart sustainable city: instrumentation,

datafication, computerization and related applications. J Big Data 6, 59 (2019).

Janssen, M., Charalabidis, Y., Zuiderwijk, A. (2012). Benefits, adoption barriers and myths of

open data and open government. Information systems management, 29(4), 258-268.

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