On Friday December 15th 2017 we gathered in the sunny surrounds of Cork International Hotel to mark the official launch of the Cork Dashboard. The Building City Dashboards team were joined by a variety of partners, stakeholders, and citizens to mark a first for the City and County region of Cork, an online open-data dashboard for Cork.

 

 

Speakers on the day included Building City Dashboards principal project investigators Professor Chris Brunsdon and Professor Rob Kitchin, Cork Smart Gateways Team members James Fogarty and Claire Davis, Councillor and Deputy Lord Mayor of Cork City Mary Shields, and Councillor and Mayor of Cork County Declan Hurley. The speakers acknowledged the Cork Dashboard as an important milestone for the Cork region; a cutting edge element for a modern European city; an innovative, practical tool to inform decision making; an example of best practise partnerships between local government and universities; and an open set of data and tools for all citizens of Cork.

 

Project lead Prof Chris Brunsdon discussed the aims and objectives of the broader dashboard project in addition to explaining the work packages (1. Data access, quality and standards, 2. Multi-modal interaction, 3. Data analytics and modelling and 4. Data literacy and outreach). Professor Rob Kitchin followed with a detailed live demo of the Cork Dashboard; bespoke Cork data modules including the real-time traffic and travel and environment maps were explored in addition to historical trends data for the region. The Cork Dashboard also displays a number of modules and explorative data tools developed by third parties such as MyPlan, Map Alerter, and AIRO.

 

Commenting on the launch, Ann Doherty, Chief Executive, Cork City Council said: “We welcome the addition of the Cork Open Data Dashboard which makes a significant contribution to enhancing our smart ecosystem. This dashboard is an excellent example of strong collaboration between academia and local authorities resulting in a valuable resource for everyone in Cork. We are committed to fully supporting and utilising the dashboard to drive new innovations, empower citizens, and enable better decision making.”

 

Mayor of Cork County, Cllr. Declan Hurley, congratulated all involved in delivering this project and considered that the user friendly, interactive, data visualisations will provide the general public, decision and policy makers, the private sector, and academics with valuable real-time information, time-series indicator data, and interactive maps about all aspects of Cork.

 

The event was free and open to the public to attend, attendees included those from Maynooth University Institute for Social Sciences (MUSSI), Cork Institute of Technology, Cork Chamber, Cork Airport, IDA, National Maritime College of Ireland, Derilinx, CSO, HSE, and University College Cork. Following the official launch attendees had the opportunity to experience virtual reality demos of the work currently being undertaken by the Building City Dashboards team using geospatial data and the HTC Vive.

For more on the official launch read the Irish Examiner’s piece here.

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