Murphy visits Newry Open Data Fund winner

Finance Minister Conor Murphy today visited Smart Newry to see first-hand how it has benefitted from the Department’s Open Data Innovation and Outreach Fund.

Finance Minister visits Smart Newry

Smart Newry was awarded almost £8,000 through the fund which it has used to deploy sensors around the city to gather environmental data for use by businesses, schools and local government.

Speaking following the visit, Finance Minister Conor Murphy said: “It’s great to see the success of the Smart Newry project and the innovative way they’ve used the Open Data Fund to benefit the local community.

“This fund has provided entrepreneurs and organisations with a real opportunity to use public sector data for commercial opportunities and drive future economic growth. I look forward to meeting with other recipients of the fund in the near future.”

Brian Cleland, co-founder of Smart Newry, said: “We were delighted to welcome Minister Murphy to Newry today to show how the Open Data Fund has enabled us to deliver this innovative smart city project.

“The Fund has allowed us to deploy the first nine ‘Smart Citizen Kits’ to a range of local business and community-based premises across the city. These devices are collecting real-time environmental data which will be available for anyone to use at no charge.”

Notes to editors: 

1. The NI Open Data Strategy was launched on 14 October
2. The £30,000 Open Data Innovation and Outreach Fund provided grants for the development of apps or other interactive visualisations that make innovative use of data on the Open Data NI portal. It offered awards of between £300 and up to £5,000. Full details of the successful projects can be found here
3. Smart Newry (Newry 2020) was successful in both Category A and B, and was awarded £4,995 to deliver an integrated environmental sensor network to assess the impact of human activities on the environment in Newry and £2,995 to host outreach events.
4. All media queries to Department of Finance Press Office on 028 9081 6724 or email dof.pressoffice@finance-ni.gov.uk. Out of office hours please contact the Duty Press Officer on 028 9037 8110 and your call will be returned.
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