The new web: Linked Data

Exactly 20 years ago, Berners-Lee, a guy at CERN, had the idea of linking documents with eachother. He invented a special protocol and 'programming language' for it: hypertext. And boom! The World Wide Web was born. 1989.

So, why not celebrate this great day by taking a little time to stretch your thinking about the Web just a bit.

Go on, make yourself a cup of tea, relax… and watch the great TED video above, in which Tim Berners-Lee explains how he invented the World Wide Web - and sheds some light on how he believes his brainchild will evolve in the future.

In this short talk, Berners-Lee explains how the World Wide Web all began because he wanted to refine the way we use information and work together - and, apparently, because his boss humoured him and agreed that he could spend time on it on the side as a “play project”. All bosses with bright staff - take note!.

But this is just the beginning. The future, Berners-Lee explains, will comprise evolving from the current ‘linked documents’ approach to a ‘linked data’ approach. This is the next revolution. Releasing, repurposing, and re-using the infinite wealth of data we collate - from medical research databases to data on relationships held on social networking sites - by linking it up in previously unconsidered ways to support previously unachievable applications.

While I was watching the video, I was thinking: this is EXACTLY what we are trying to do with the portal. FREE THE DATA! No more boxing up the data within our organisation, but making it all accessible for operations people to make operational data, and for managers to make informed decisions.

Or let their staff make informed decisions...

But seriously. Think about it. We have collected Compas data, food commodity tracking data for the past 10 years. What a mass of data. A wealth of data... Think what we can use that data for.

Thanks to the Supply Chain Optimization team (Temmy and Co) from the Logistics Development Unit, we will have the first glimpse of the possibilities, on the new portal.

Here is an overview of the pipeline and the food corridors for Uganda:



Each corridor shows the average transit time, based on the past x months. Each corridor can be clicked and historical data is displayed. All on the spot:



Just a glimpse of the possibilities...

Video discovered via Giving in a digital world