Last week Steve Preston, Director of MIME Consulting and founder of Skills Route, was invited to speak at the ODI Summit on a panel chaired by Martha Lane Fox. The discussion focused on the potential to use open data to achieve positive social impact and drew on the experiences of Steve and Gail Ramster, creator of The Great British Public Toilet Map and Will Perrin, Founder of Talk About Local. 

The wide-ranging and fascinating discussion explored advances in open data, the challenges of working with this raw material and the ramifications of technical advances for our work across sectors and across borders. Steve focused on the importance of open data within the education sector. He spoke about how lucky we are in the UK to have so much widely available data within the sector and highlighted the important challenge - to create innovations that use data in a meaningful and useful way. 

MIME's own product Skills Route, the Nesta Open Data challenge winner, is one example of a product that has been able to make use of open data with the ultimate goal of ensuring more young people pursue subjects and courses that reflect their interests and achieve the best possible outcomes. Skills Route strives to improve the decision making capabilities of young people and their parents at a crucial time in their educational lives.

You can watch the video of the panel here.

We would love to hear your thoughts on the subject - do get in touch using the contact us form.