This is a defining step for HCAP in the course of its digital transition which provides access to selected open data sets of its subsidiaries on subjects such as water supply and sanitation, transport and post services, food distribution, as well as other sectors included in its activities.
This action utilises a very important asset of HCAP — the open data of its subsidiaries — to produce value for the benefit of society, the economy, and the environment. According to the study on the economic impact of open data issued in 2020 by the European Data Portal, significant benefits include saving time in transport, providing first aid more quickly, increasing employment, facilitating new business models, and saving energy, in an environment where the trend indicates a projected open data market size in Europe of more than 200 billion by 2025.
So far, the O2 Hub includes 41 data sets from 7 subsidiaries in 10 different sectors. Visitors to the hub can find data on urban transport (Transport for Athens), the production and consumption of drinking water (EYDAP, EYATH), fish, fruit and vegetables sales, meat sales (Central Markets and Fishery Organisation, CMT), postal service data (imports-exports of post items) (Hellenic Post), and many other useful data.
This action marks the beginning of a series of initiatives by HCAP and its subsidiaries, aiming to exchange knowledge via open data and thus contribute decisively to digital transformation, strengthen transparency and innovation, and act as an important tool for the research and startup sectors.
By making public services’ data available, HCAP ensures that universities, research bodies, startups, and public and private organisations will have the opportunity to draw all necessary data for the development of new services, always to the benefit of society as a whole.
In his statement, Mr Giourelis underlined that, “it is the first time that Greek public enterprises collaborate to jointly provide data at scale via the application of programming interfaces”. He also stressed that, “with the implementation of the Hub, we are enhancing the knowhow of our subsidiaries for their incorporation into the data economy. At the same time, we are ensuring interoperability with other national and international data hubs and we are promoting the data assets of the group, while aligning ourselves with the broader national and European strategy on open data”.
The goal of HCAP is to continuously enhance the Hub and to enrich it with more data sets from all its subsidiaries and holdings, thus ensuring its usefulness and sustainability. At the same time, it is investing in the development of automations for updating data and creating the necessary open data culture throughout the group, with closer collaboration between the subsidiaries for the exchange of best practices, as well as for the further utilisation of the Hub as a point of reference in the broader ecosystem.
