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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
office@adelphi.de
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
Time Topic Presenter(s)
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
Time Topic Presenter(s)
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
adelphi TREA REA Kaunas University 005
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.
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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)
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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,
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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.
adelphi TREA REA Kaunas University 009
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.
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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.
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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
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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)
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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.
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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.
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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)
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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
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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.
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Sadiq, S., & Indulska, M. (2017). Open data: Quality over quantity. International Journal of
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Vetrò, A., Canova, L., Torchiano, M., Minotas, C. O., Iemma, R., & Morando, F. (2016).
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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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