Drupal Meetup: Open Data + Drupal May 10, 2010

The next Washington, DC Drupal meetup will be on Monday, May 10 at 7:00 pm and will be an exciting one focused on open data. Last week the World Bank launched a huge open data initiative by opening up its massive database of 2,000+ data indicators on human development around the world and made much of the data available on http://data.worldbank.org - a Drupal site. At this meetup, we'll have three short presentations on the site and the components and work that made it possible:

* Jeff McCoy from the World Bank will talk about why the World Bank opened up this data, their goals with Data.WorldBank.org, and why they decided to build the site on Drupal, and Livia Barton, also from the World Bank, will share some stats from the site.

* Frank Febbraro from Phase 2 Technology will talk about the World Bank's API that lets people access and interact with the data and why it's built as it is.

* Alex Barth from Development Seedwill walk through Data.WorldBank.org, explain how it works, and talk about some of the modules powering it.

UPDATE: We'll have at least one other talk on open data:

* Peter Corbett from iStrategy Labs will share details on what the European Union efforts to open up their government data and will also talk about Digital Capital Week, a 10-day technology festival coming to DC this June.

We'll also ask people who attended DrupalCon San Francisco last week to share their biggest take aways, so if you were one of the lucky ones who attended think about what you can share with the group.

Drupal meetups are open to everyone and are a great way to get to learn more about Drupal, meet the local community, and in this case hear about how a large organization is opening up their data and using open source software to do so.

The meetup will start at 7:00 pm, with presentations starting at 7:30 pm. More details and RSVP at http://groups.drupal.org/node/65623.

Hope to see you there!